Notes From Mazatlán, Mexico: Stone Island ~ by Jim Bentein

The experiment in land reform wasn’t a great success, largely because each ejidatario (peasants receiving the land) got only 10 hectares, not enough land to farm economically. Eventually the legislation creating the ejidos was changed to allow ejido owners to sell their land.

The experiment worked on Stone Island, however, and the dozen or so families who were given land as part of the ejido, which stretches 18 kms along the coast and inland about five kms, continue to control it, along with their descendants.

Carmen Rubalcaba, 84, is from one of the original ejido families and her grandson, Rudi Bastidas, 46, operates Rudi’s, one of the three palapa restaurants most popular with “gringos”, meaning anyone who isn’t Mexican.

“My father was living in Mazatlán and he heard about the creation of this new ejido,” says Rubalcaba, who first moved there with her family in 1936.

Married at 19, her late husband was given the wood from a pier he had helped build on the island, with which he built the island’s first palapa restaurant – now Pila’s – but most often referred to as “Rudi’s” by those who frequent it.

“The tourists started coming in the 1940s, but there were only three restaurants then,” she said.

“The gringos started coming in the 1960s – they were hippies and most of them slept on the beach.”

Stone Island has since gone up-market and sleeping on the beach is discouraged, which is why the hostel and the small apartment hotel have sprung up.

“Some of those hippies still come back and visit me,” says Rubalcaba, adding that most of them too have gone up-market, having entered the economic mainstream, in keeping with Stone Island’s evolution.

While the island retains its isolated feel, with houses in the small village, located about two kms from the beach, surrounded by goats, chickens, geese and the seemingly ubiquitous Mexican dogs, her grandson says things have changed in the 13 years he has been operating the restaurant.

“More and more people are discovering Stone Island,” he said.

“Every year I see new tourists and my friends (his customers) bring new tourists.”

The restaurant, which sports a large Canadian flag, is particularly popular among Canada tourists, says Rudi, who learned to speak English in school in Mazatlán and worked in hotels in that city.

He says the “paradise” that is Stone Island may be disrupted some day by five star hotel tourism, but it won’t happen without a fight.

“There has never been a Holiday Inn or a Hilton here and if they tried to come now the community decision would be no,” he said.

However, he says there has been talk of turning a coconut plantation on the island, located about one km from his restaurant, into a resort of some kind.

“It would be a community decision and I don’t know what that decision would be,” he says, with a tinge of regret in his voice.

If big time tourism ever does come to the island, Dick and Irene McCaffrey, who spent a day on Stone Island in December, on their way to their winter home in the Lake Chapala area, near Guadalajara, will remember what it was like back then. They spend their summers in the Calgary area.

“A short walk from the downtown ferry terminal took us through a typical Mexican village environment, to a broad beach with numerous palapa-type restaurants,” Dick said of their trip there.

“The beach was of a clean, fine sand, providing ideal wading”.

“At Victor’s (a palapa restaurant near Rudi’s) we enjoyed an excellent meal of fresh local fish and shrimp, grilled over a wood burning fire.

“The price of food and drinks reflects a more rural Mexican cost, as opposed to the tourist area of Mazatlán (and other Mexican beach resorts)”.

“Our day trip to Stone Island was a welcome respite from the more popular beaches (of Mexican resorts).”

Some expatriates have discovered Stone Island for more than one-day stopovers. For instance, restaurant owner Rudi and others on the island who have unused ejido land have started renting out plots, in exchange for the expats building house son them. One retired doctor from the Western U.S. has built an oceanfront house on such a lot and, in return, secured a 10-year lease.

There are also long-term house rentals available in the hamlet, just off the beach, most well under $400 a month.

And those so inclined can arrange for long-term stays in the new hotel, with significant discounts available for stays of longer than a week.

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