Winding Down La Paz

We are on our last four days here in La Paz.  We had a great time - good friends were here with us for most of it - they went back to Ensenada a couple days ago.  It was the first time Mike and I were on a vacation with friends and we really enjoyed it.  We tend to be a little solitary, so to have it work nicely like this was a new and wonderful experience.  Today is Saturday - we take the ferry 13 hours to Mazatlan on Tuesday.  I am looking forward to it - we sprung for a cabin so we could lie down if we felt like it. 

Since we have been here, the weather has finally been warm enough to swim at the beach!  Actually, I said that wrong.  It hasn't been a need for warmer water that kept us out of the ocean, it is the water temperature.  La Paz is on the Sea of Cortez, where the water is warm.  Mazatlan is on the Pacific Ocean, which has colder water.  And believe me, these Sea of Cortez beaches are just like what you see in travel ads - beautiful turquoise water and light sands.  I stayed in the water the other day until my fingers were wrinkled.  You can see fish swimming away from you and shells on the bottom because the water is so clear.  I could go on and on, but I won't.  You get the idea. 

Today we are going to take the car and just drive around the southern part of the baja pennisula - maybe a drive to Cabo for old times sake!  Yesterday we drove to a town called Todos Santos and had dinner.  Todos Santos is an artist's community located on the Pacific ocean side of the penninsula. It is a beautiful place and the food was good.  We ate at the Hotel California.  The ocean water was cold, so we chose not to go swimming.  The beaches there are beautiful though - miles of sand and surf without interruption. 

I really miss the boat and am more than ready to get home to it.  We have the new watermaker to install - and if we get there soon enough, the guy who sells these things will still be on his boat in the Mazatlan Harbor if we run into difficulties with the installation.  I don't really anticipate Mike having any problems with the job, however.  Here's hoping!  But after that watermaker is installed, we plan to go back up here and spend a month at some islands offshore here.  I am looking forward to the peace and quiet of a lonely anchorage for awhile! 

Well, I have to get going.  I will try and do a better post later on - I have been pretty lazy lately.   

Stuck . . . but who cares?

We arrived in La Paz after a 20 hour bus ride.   We left Ensenada at 10 am on Monday and arrived at 7:30 am on Tuesday.  The bus ride actually turned out to be fun for the most part.  The buses have really comfortable seats and show movies almost all day.  The movies were action movies in English with Spanish subtitles, which works really well because sometimes it is hard to hear the dialouge.  Most of those movies are pretty easy to follow even without dialouge, and I speak just enough Spanish to read the subtitles to fill in any place that gets missed when the dialouge becomes inaudible.  The bus was quiet, and the bathroom did not ever get gtruly disgusting, no worse than a transpacific flight.  We stopped for lunch in San Quintin, and then for dinner in Guererro Negro.  "Bus Stop" in Spanish. 

Mike and I enjoyed the ride because we drove the same route about seven years ago or so.  Some things had changed and some things had not.  The desert was still amazingly beautiful and the timing was great - it seemed like all the things I really wanted to see were passed during the daylight hours.  There are a lot of different cactuses here that are found nowhere else in the world.

I will not say that the ride did not exhaust us, because it did. I can't sleep on a bus, no matter how comfortable the seats are, because I can't lay down.  I could only doze for about half an hour at a time,max.  But it is a small price to pay for being able to live like this.

Once we got here, we checked into the El Moro hotel. We liked it so much we made arrangements to put everyone who comes to visit us up here at this hotel.  It also has a little restaurant that serves breakfast and lunch, and a little outside bar, as well as a good pool.  We can also see the ocean - right across the malecon (boardwalk) from our room.

Our really good friends, Margo, Tony and Charro the dog, were here from Ensenada and it was fantastic to see them.  We also have another boat of friends that will be here in a day or so, and three other boats that we need to check on and see if they are still here.  Margo and Tony are doing some further exploring and will be back here in a couple days, so we will get to spend some more time with them while we wait to get on the ferry and go back to Magda Jean in Mazatlan.

Here is the wrinkle in all of this - we are going to be here in La Paz until May 3.  We cannot get a ferry before then, and since we have too much crap to fly,we must simply stay here the two weeks, although we did not budget for this extra expense!  I almost burst into tears when the woman at the ferry office broke the news that all ferries in April were booked up and we would have to wait until May 3 to leave.  I was  so looking forward to getting back to Magda Jean and Mazatlan!  Then it occurred to me that La Paz is one of my favorite places of all time.  In fact, before we decided to be sailors, the plan was to come to La Paz as soon as I retired and live here for six months.  Like I said  before, the hotel is great.   So I guess there are worse things than having an unplanned two weeks in paradise!  The only problem is - I have no clothes with me for this climate!  I brought cold weather stuff for Wisconsin and Missouri, and only a couple changes of clothing for the weather down here.  I did not even bring a bathing suit!  So now - with two weeks to spend in a place that in my humble opinion has the best beach in Baja, I have to go shopping.  I don't like to shop.  But at the very least I need a bathing suit, anothr pair of shorts or a sundress, and a couple tops. It simply must be done. 

Another interesting thing with this new way of life has to do with our social life. We never used to have one.  Mike is simply not that interested in socializing, and I found my social needs were met by people I worked with and some correspondents.  Not everyone is lucky enough to get to spend 8 hours a day getting paid to spend time with really wonderful people but I did.  The people at my job were like family to me, a lot of them.  I just didn't need anyone else.  I had my work friends during the week, and Mike and I were happy to be on our owns on the weekends.  I lived in San Diego for a long time - years and years - and if I went to dinner or the theater or a movie or some other event or even a bar, it was unlikely I would see anyone I knew.  I was surprized if I did.  But ever since we have been sailing, we have developed a whole network of people.  We KNOW that in any of these coastal Mexican towns, we will either run into someone we have met somewhere else or at the very least a friend of a friend.  It is wonderful, and I would not have expected this.  And because not everyone decides to live like this, we learn something from almost everyone we meet and automatically have a lot of common interests.  Days like today make me feel like the luckiest person in the world.  I just wish my parents were alive to see how well everything worked out for me.  Although neither one of them would have had the slightest interest in living like I do, I think they would have thought it was great for me. 

Right now there is a Mexican cooking show on TV.  Whatever she is fixing really looks good.  She speaks clearly, which is good for me, but also very fast, which is bad for me.  I only got about half the ingredients.

I feel like I am on the brink of something significant.  We'll see what happens. 

        

Sunsets

One of the best things about living on a boat and sailing around is the number of beautiful sunsets you get to see.  I just finished organizing some pictures, and thought I would post these. 

Here is a sunset over Cabo San Lucas

Here is a sunset over Ensenada.

And here is Bahia Tortuga (Turtle Bay)



And here is a sunrise and a sunset taken on one of our overnight passages, somewhere between Ensenada and Mazatlan.

So - this is in part why it never gets boring out there.  There is always something to marvel over. 

Back in Mexico

We arrive  here in Ensenada yesterday on the shuttle.  It was the  best border crossing I have had in ages.  We have a LOT of stuff, and it is very heavy.  There is too much to fly back to Mexico, and for a lot of reasons we can't and shouldn't have it shipped in.  So that means we have to cart it back.  We took a shuttle that leaves from West Marine in San Diego and goes to the Coral Hotel in Ensenada.  That way we are not dragging all that heavy stuff by hand across the border.  The shuttle stops at the border, but the driver just talks to customs and then we are on our way.  It is great to be back here in Mexico.  I am glad to be speaking Spanish again.  A lot of the people here remember us - including the woman at the bank counter at immigration! 

I also discovered the answer to something that has been plaguing me for a long time.  I don't remember for sure if I made a big deal about it here like I did on Facebook, but the last time I was here in Ensenada I saw a pink pigeon.  Here is a picture of him or her.

I could not figure out how he or she came to be pink.  Several people suggested the bird had been dyed, and others (myself included) believed it to be a genetic abnormality.  I had never seen one before.  Nobody I asked had, either.  I went and visited the pigeon almost every day during the six weeks we were here before, and discovered he was in every observable way a normal pigeon.  He was feisty during pigeon feeding frenzies, and could hold his own without being overly aggressive. 

Anyway, I never stopped thinking about him even after we left Ensenada, and I determined that I was going to go and look for him the next time I came to Ensenada.  So this morning, Mike and I went lookinbg for him while we waited for the immigration office to open.  Here is what we found:

And also this:

While I was exclaiming over the blue one and getting out my camera, a man standing nearby pointed out a multicolored pastel one and one that was olive green on one side.  I asked him why the colors? He told me there is a man who catches the white pigeons by getting them to eat out of his hand, and then paints them and lets them go.  Finally the mystery is solved.  I do not think it hurts the pigeons.  And I am pretty sure the blue one used to be my pink one because there was a little bit of faded pink on the top of his head. 

So now all we have to do is have a nice time here until we get on the 24 hour bus to La Paz.  There is a race ending here tomorrow - a sailboat race that goes from Newport Beach to Ensenada.  I imagine Hussong's will be exciting tonight and we plan to be there.  I am planning to wake up late tomorrow!

On The Road

We have been away from the boat for almost a month now, and I miss it.  So does Mike.  We are back in San Diego for a couple of days, to take care of business.

We flew into St. Louis on March 11, and of course when we got there at about 11 pm, we discovered our suitcase did not arrive with us.  We last saw it in Denver when we cleared customs, so we knew that it did make it to the US.  The guy at Frontier Airlines was wonderful, and we eventually headed off to the rental car place with two tiny little black bags filled with toiletries, courtesy of Frontier Airlines.  The only reason we cared at all about the luggage was because all our tax papers, which included hundreds of receipts, were in there.  So it would be pretty much a disaster if it were to be permanently lost.  And things were complicated by the fact that our first destination - Hayward, Wisconsin - was hours from any airport. (They found the suitcase and sent it to us via Fed Ex and we got it five days after we arrived.)

But there was nothing we could do about it except wait, so we picked up the rental car.  I kept complaining to Mike how it wasn't fair that some people had one, two, even THREE suitcases while we had none at all.  At one point I said "Honey, please get the luggage" and pointed to the little airline bags with toiletries the airline gave us at the lost luggage counter.  The guy at the rental counter said "you are the happiest people I've ever seen for people that just got robbed."

I learned a lot on the drive from St. Louis to Hayward, because I paid attention in a different way than I ever had before.  This part of the midwest was not a part I had really been to before, and even if I had been there, it was only to drive through on my way to somewhere else, usually on a tight schedule.  And I never paid any serious attention to the landscape, only to note if it were pretty or not.  Finally, any trips I did take to the area were before I developed my almost obsession with bodies of water. For the first time, I was not on a rigid schedule.  Next, I was accompanied by a learned geologist (Mike, and he really is one), who was really interested in seeing the country from that and other scientific points of view.  Finally, there were lakes and rivers and creeks, all of which had water in them.   Moraine country!  I only hope I am spelling it right.

Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures while on this leg of the trip - it was all too fascinating just looking at everything and being there.  There was snow and ice and everything was sort of melting and then freezing again, over and over, almost more than once in the same day.  It was cold, but not too cold so as to be miserable outside.  The only bummer was that it was not the kind of weather for hiking.  It didn't freeze deep enough to be able to walk on top of the snow, and you would fall through.  Then it would get wet and mucky.  In some ways, I think it is the least hiking friendly time of year. 

We had a great visit with my family in Wisconsin.  I don't get to see them very often, but I am hoping now that they have seen how well Mike and I have survived so far, they might come and see us! 

While driving around Wisconsin, we came across the YMCA camp I went to as a kid.  Everything was covered with snow, and a lot had changed, but some of the original buildings were still there, including one of the cabins I stayed in.  This is the outside.

Here is the inside.

I guess it has seen better days - I did not remember it quite like this. And below - the lake.

It was strange, but fun to see it after all these years - I went when I was nine and ten years old - so it has been like 45 years since I was there.  I wish my son had gone - my dad went when he was a kid.

We also watched rivers break up - here is a picture of that.

It was more dramatic in person.  Even all the years I lived there, I just never paid any attention to stuff like that.  I guess I was too busy waiting for it to get warm at that point.

After we left Wisconsin, we went down the Mississippi River all the way to Cape Girardeau, Missouri before we turned west for Mike's mom's house and the Ozarks.  I have never taken this particular road trip before, and the little river towns were amazingly beautiful.  We were especially impressed by the churches with their incredibly tall steeples - Mike referred to them as "God spears."  The river itself was mesmerizing - it is a real working river and the sight of so much water moving here and there was wonderful.  I was in my element.  Maybe I should have been a river pilot!  Here is a picture of the Mississippi in St. Louis.  It was taken from the restaurant that was on the top floor of our hotel.

 

Here is the river in a more rural setting.

Anyway - if I had to live in a city and it had to be in the midwest, I think I would pick St. Louis.  I liked a lot of things about it, and it had a good vibe.  And really good food!

Missouri is full of springs.  I mean really full of springs. We went and saw at least five in a forty mile radius of Mike's mom's house.  They are incredible (I must get some new adjectives!).  I do not have words to describe how hundreds and thousands of gallons of water just comes bubbling up from the ground or out from under a cliff face.  And "bubbling" is too mild.  It comes pouring out of cliff faces, and when it comes up from the ground, it is like someone has a fire hose under the water shooting it upward.  It is humbling and inspiring at the same time to see so much natural water.  And what is called a "creek" in Missouri would be a raging river in California.  Here is an example.

 A creek?  Really?  But I will never stopped being amazed by natural running water.  Never. 

So now we are back in San Diego, taking care of business.  We got our taxes done, visited more family, and bought a new watermaker.  It will make 30 gallons of drinking water out of sea water via reverse osmosis, and runs off the little gas generator we have on board.  This is really good because this means we can go pretty much as far away as we want to and we will not run out of water.  Sometimes it is easier to get food than it is to get water.  And since we will be in the Sea of Cortez all summer, which is a desert, it will come in very handy as otherwise we would have to buy it.  And be very careful with it. This means we can have fresh water showers any time we want to. And fresh water wash downs every time we get salty, which is always.  And the dishes can be washed in fresh water.  All we (Mike) have (has) to do now is get it to Mexico and install it.  We have so much stuff to haul across the border it is not even funny.  Two dollys with boxes and the biggest unit of the watermaker on them, and two suitcases, one of which contains a heavy pump for the watermaker and a wheel for the dinghy.  We have to haul all of that on a shuttle bus, a regular bus, a ferry, and god knows how many taxis to the boat.  But there are worse things - and after all, we are headed back to Mexico.  I miss it terribly.  It could easily become a black hole for me - a place I fall into and never leave.  I like it just that much! 

Anyway - we did a lot of things I didn't tell all about - like replacing the floor under Mike's mom's toilet, and seeing different birds, including pheasents and peacocks, and going to Arkansas which is MUCH more sophisticated than Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma combined.  (Except for St. Louis.)  Mike's mom is moving there, so in the future we will be going to Arkansas rather than Missouri.  And because Mike's niece in Arkansas is an equestrian, we got to see her horse and see her ride it, and now Mike is more positive about horses than he was before.  I might actually get him to ride one in the near future!  We also stayed in a beautiful resort in Arkansas on the White River.

Here is a picture of two of my sisters and I demonstrating in Wisconsin against union busting. 

.

  It was good to be able to do something besides just have a good time sightseeing and visiting people I love, something worthwhile and bigger than I am.  I just hope people here could stop being so mean about each other.  There is no other way to describe it.   Just plain mean, with no compassion or even noblesse oblige, something I think even the French nobility supported, for heaven's sake. 

I will try to post again after we get from here to Ensenada - leaving tomorrow via a shuttle bus that leaves a marine supply store about two blocks from this hotel to a hotel in Ensenada.  Then we will check into Mexico and get a six month visa, and spend a day or so before we drag all our stuff on a bus to La Paz - a 24 hour ride. I just found out some friends of ours might be in La Paz at the same time, so we'll spend a day there.  Then after that we drag our stuff to a ferry for a 13 hour ride to Mazatlan.  I bet that trip will generate some interesting stories - or at least gruesome descriptions of aches and pains!