Goodbye La Paz
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Time period: Thursday 02/27/14 – Tuesday 03/04/14 We finally said goodbye to La Paz and to all of our friends there, but not before we enjoyed Carnaval! |
We stayed in La Paz - I am almost afraid to say it - for 2 months and 24 days, much longer than we had anticipated. The main reason was that we underestimated the amount of boat work we needed to get done and of course the time it takes to do it. One thing we started to do in the end was to outsource certain tasks to local professionals who could do the job much faster and better than we could. Java helped us refinish our wooden doors and the rubrail, and Hector built us a dodger which protects our cockpit from wind and spray. But professionals expect to receive this thing called money, so we still did most of the tasks ourselves - with a little help from our friends.
Speaking of friends, in La Paz we got to spend time with old friends and make several new ones. La Paz has a unique and very friendly cruiser community which includes an entertaining morning radio net on VHF channel 22 (watch out for Friday, it's fish day :-)), several very helpful gringos running small marine businesses, and a fantastic group of people on dock 3 in Marina Palmira. Everybody helps each other out, no task is too big and no problem too small. We will really miss the community we became a part of.
Our dock 3 neighbors wishing us farewell, from left to right: Will (Shaman), Albert, Bob (Knuckledragger), Kevan (Entre Nous), Marilyn (Shaman), Michelle and David (Pelagia), Lance (Kyalhi . . . need to check this)
The fastest dock neighbors we ever had. Koko and Chico chasing each other.
Furthermore La Paz is a very friendly and safe town. The main road along the waterfront, the Malecon, is frequented by both locals and tourists in the evenings. You see entire families, covering sometimes three generations, out walking and mingling with pale skinned folks who seemed to have just dropped out of an airplane from Alaska. And of course the food is excellent. There are all kinds of delicious Mexican food, but also great pizza (Harker boards), sushi, Chinese, Thai, you name it. You can get all the groceries you want, and marine parts are also available, although tracking them down can sometimes test your endurance. Plus there is the La Paz Carnaval which ranks among the best ones in the country, so we have been told. All in all, La Paz is a place where it is easy to settle in for a while. If we weren't on a tight one-year schedule, we would happily still be there!
Shopping in La Paz is fun, here Alena stocks up on produce in Mercado Bravo.
During our last couple days in La Paz, we got to experience the Carnaval. Though the La Paz celebration is not as large as the Carnaval in Mazatlan (ranked as the 3rd largest in the world), it was still a great show and a good time. The Malecon is closed off to cars and the streets are filled with food stands, games, and stalls selling anything and everything you can imagine. Bandstands are set up on almost every street block and after dark the streets are throbbing with their music. People of all ages are out and about enjoying the festivities. And on three of the six days of Carnaval, there is a large parade filled with great floats. This year's parade theme was "infinite universe, " so many of the floats and marchers were really getting into an alien theme.
The Queens of the Carnaval. The costumes were spectacular.
Samba, a la Brazil. Note the "Do not throw eggs" sign - the tradtion is to throw eggs filled with confetti during Carnaval.
Our favorite, polar bears with gas masks and aliens.
Riding the flying dragon from Avatar
We will miss La Paz and all our friends there, especially David and Michelle on Pelagia (our chicken dinner favorite) who we first met in Alameda and have been hanging out with ever since, and of course sunset beers with our dock neighbors. All of our boatwork was made a lot more fun and less painful because we had such great people to hang out with!
David and Michelle in their natural habitat - on the sailing vessel Pelagia.
Chris excited to dig into our last excellent chicken dinner on Pelagia.
But we are also excited about the adventures which lie ahead of us and the next chapter of this voyage. We will now cross the Sea of Cortez and head to Mazatlan, and then south to Puerto Vallarta. Stay tuned for the next blog from Mazatlan!
Beachcombing at Bonanza Beach on Espiritu Santo. We stopped there on our way to Mazatlan.