La Paz, The City of Pearls

We were scheduled to fly out of La Paz to Puerto Vallarta at 6:30 am on the morning of June 19. Opting for an extra hour of sleep, we decided to spend the night in La Paz. La Paz used to be a sleepy fishing town famous for its pearls. Unfortunately, now, like much of Baja, the town is increasingly surrendering to the pressure of tourism and industry. Frankly, in our limited exposure, Ellie and I have never been too enamored with the town. Admittedly, however, we haven’t really seen much of La Paz. In fact, we have only spent the night at the iconic Los Arcos (on the malecon) when we needed to fly out early after a weekend in Todos Santos. We had both heard there are some nice developments (oxymoron?) that were being constructed north of town. So, this time we decided to venture to the new Marina district 5 minutes north of town. After some limited haggling, we secured a mountain view room at the Fiesta Inn. As far as large branded hotels go, it was a nice “business class” hotel. But, we stayed there only after being assured we’d have internet access in our room (and being offered an off-season rate). Ultimately I ended up sitting in the lobby until 1am to access the internet since the coverage was limited.
http://www.turista.com.mx/fiesta+inn+la+paz-hotel-155-english.html

We did manage to salvage the afternoon exploring the beaches even further north. We drove past Playa Pichelingue (fairly crowded beach for low season but had amenities). Just when we were about to give up, we found Playa Balandra, home of La Paz’s famous Diamond Rock. It was pristine and fairly empty (although the local polka music could be heard for at least a mile). You can walk almost a mile in the shallow bay and it offered a perfect anchorage for sailing. I even emulated Patrick Davenport’s tradition to embrace nature by a long swim in the suit of my birth. I swam about a mile out to two sailboats. The water was crystalline and incredibly tepid. There’s some old school brick grills on the beach if you wanted to cook. I was surprised as the sun went down that due to the geography, it set over the bay even though we were on the west coast. http://thoos.com/fishing/places/Playa+Balandra.

We finished the night with a very average lobster dinner for two at El Bismarck in the town of La Paz. The restaurant was named after a the German battleship as evidenced by some poor frescoes on the walls.

While we’ll certainly give La Paz another chance, next time we’ll be sure to arrange for some boating and/or diving as well as try a new place to stay and restaurant.

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Happy Father’s Day

Started the morning with what could have been a disaster. We were scheduled to leave Monday morning. It was Sunday and the entire town was gearing up for fiestas for father’s day and pretty much shut down. Unfortunately the Big Red Burb had sprang a leak in the cooling system. Brian and I struggled to find a mechanic in a town in which everyone is a mechanic. We did manage to find the Torteria where they make the tortillas for most of the town (next to the mechanic’s shop). While waiting for the mechanic we removed the air filter and found what looked like a $.99 problem with no solution in site. A broken plastic T where 3-hoses connected. I found an entrepreneurial young man who promised to return in 20 minutes. A little over an hour later in the hot sun when we were just about to give up he returned with a tool kit and a copper pipe he appeared to have cut from his sink and some sandpaper. Not ideal but it did the job, we gave him $20 and we were back in business. It was a great learning experience for both of us and we met about half of the town in the process.

I headed towards Las Tunas a few hours later to watch the mini-Baja 1000 (not the big one yet) with Brandon. As I was pulling up the dirt road towards our property I got drastically waved to the side. Just as I was pulling over, one of the trucks came flying directly at me. We parked the car and watched the race go by for a couple of hours while we gathered in the local culture. One of the celebratory fathers had a little too much to drink and started walking across the road. He nearly got his and a bunch of locals carried him to the other side. I’ll post some photos.

Sunday night we rented 5 horses for a sunset ride from Kaya, one of the local photographers we had met before. I road Victoria again into the sunset. Aside from the dolphin carcass that spooked my horse, it was absolutely spectacular. Again, photos to come.

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Father’s Day Dinner at Tre Galline

Ellie arranged a magical dinner at Tre Galline for an early birthday celebration. Magna, the Italian proprietor, wore a sexy red dress to impress and set up a private room for us upstairs. There were the 7 of us and Sandra, another local Italian with whom we have become friends joined. After the traditional Prosecco, we all agreed to defer to the cook on the menu for the night. We had some good music and a few bottles of a great red wine. We all cried “basta” before we even got to the pesce. Everyone agreed it was one of the best Italian meals they had ever had and Brian and Kellie, in their eternal attempt to one-up us, decided to book the restaurant in October for Kellie’s Todos birthday bash.

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From Here to La Paz

No time to check out the surf today. Instead, headed from Todos Santos to La Paz this morning to look at tile with our architect, Hiram, and to meet Ellie and Rob Kramer at the airport. It was incredibly hot out and I saw a poor soul on the side of the road hitch hiking. I decided to pick him up for the company. His name was Augusto from Oaxaca. He spoke no English but had some bling with a silver front tooth. In my best Spanish I learned that he has lived here alone for 2 years, worked as nighttime security guard, hitchhiked an hour each way every day (which was difficult) and was carrying a pistole in his backpack. This was a nice substitute for my morning coffee.

Spent the day looking at some amazing hand painted sinks and tile. I’ll upload some photos. Ellie and Rob were at the airport as planned. Other than some cattle crossing the road, the trip home was non-eventful. We made it to the Alegria for an afternoon nap, some turtle and fish feeding in the pond and another spectacular sunset at the beach 8:12 pm. Venus lit up the sky.

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