One bright recent morning, Culiacán threw a party like old times, with chefs serving up aguachile, a Sinaloan-style ceviche, and musicians blasting a riot on their trumpets and drums.
“It used to be like this every weekend,” said Alexis, one of the apprentice chefs, taking a moment in the cool quiet of the cathedral.
But away from this show of spirit in the city centre, the very violence they were defying continued. One body turned up in a river; another was burned to bones in a field on the edge of town.
Three months of war between rival factions of the Sinaloa cartel have left more than a thousand dead or disappeared, and a city in a unique kind of humanitarian crisis. Culichis, as the city’s inhabitants are known, are trying to return to normality – but are constantly reminded that they live at the whim of organised crime.