Monday, January 31, 2011

la paz sunday. mazatlan monday el rosario monday

so, we go to the ferry company. there is another woman working and all our papers are fine !!  we get our permit.  and get our tickets. and onto the ferry !!! it left pichilingue at 3 and arrived in topolobampo at 9 pm. smooth ride which was made smoother by the 2 margaritas we both had. les slept for a couple hours and i studied for my mexican history test. which i think i will be taking once we reach mexico city. ferry is quiet and not too full. some guys play cards. kids run around. many watch tv. others listen to music. others play fuseball

arrive in topo and go to los mochis for a motel. seedy one but we are tired.  very noisy all night. like i said, we are really tired and sleep like babies.

today was mazatlan - took us 5 hours to get there. the outskirts are really dirty and ugly but the old historical center is really nice. we choose an eatery at random. stuffed chicken for les (balck mushroom filling) and mango shrimp for me.  very delish and typical according to our waiter.  we find a newspaper article that rates this restaurant - LA CUEVA DEL LEON - as one of the best in mazatlan.  whoooohooooo. what good luck.

i walked after lunch and found many old buildings in disrepair and others totally redone and gorgeous. i found a poet who was having a garage sale. i found a library that is for americans.

after walking, les wants to go onto another town, any town, he is not happy with mazatlan.  so we head out and here we are in EL ROSARIO. it is a pretty big town. the church is fantastic - guilded wall.  statues. stained glass windows. nice.  there is a ruin which looks like an old old church.  the officer guarding it said that it was built over a gold mine and the river eroded underneath. so the church is being moved stone by stone. the new version looks nothing like the old one.

and here we are in a lovely hotel - les is snoring, i am catching up on the blog. good night folks !  i will see if i can add some photos to the blog .....

LA PAZ

so, we arrived on a thursday night, met with dudu and went to a wonderful dinner at la fonda. talked at his house for a bit and then went to bed. next morning, we had set up to met alonso to get some papers i need for my mexican citizenship. we also gave him his table and bike t-shirt !  thanks alonso for the support !! we also met with bunnie and andy who gave us all sorts of tips for the mainland trip. great breakfast and then off we went to pichilingue to get our mexican car permitted to go to the mainland.

it was just not to be - we had COPIES of our docs and we needed the originals. since we were not even sure we even had originals, we drove 10 hours back to la bocana. arrived at almost midnight. exhaused. slept.

next morning we found the papers and headed south again - 10 hours. had lunch in loreto this time. auggies for hamburgers and fish tacos....very, very good. we met chris who has a house in loreto then we took off. the trip south is boring boring boring once you leave loreto. so i slept a lot. once we were past constitution and literally on a desolate stretch of highway, Les informs me that he did not top off in loreto and we are low - scary low - in the red low on gas !!!  we did make it to la paz but it was very stressful.  we were on fumes and i was really fuming.  it was about to get dark and we have no cell phone since we want to get the chip on the mainland.  ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh what a relief to get gas and then ....

then.....

we head out of the gas station on a one way street !!! and a car is zooming towards us and must be on drugs, cause he does not slow down one bit.  stressful ??????????? nahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

then we go do internet. eat dinner. la paz is packed with tourists and i mean packed. we hit a number of hotels and none of them had rooms !!  so we decided to take andy and bunnies advice and hit a motel. they are right. they are spotless and cheap and that is where we slept !!

Heading for LA PAZ

We woke up at 7 and looked at each other – let’s go, we’re on vacation !  and the craziness of getting everything ready started: Les packing the suitcases in the car, Blanca doing internet (of course) , washing breakfast dishes and putting them away, making sure the house was ready for guests. When we leave, our neighbors take care of the B & B for us. Linda is fantastic – she speaks not a word of English but she makes it happen and our guests love her …they also take great care of Rex and if we are gone longer than a week, the tell us that Rex has forgotten his English and understands only Spanish, and that he has changed his last name to Arce Villvicencio.

We left at 8. Excitement filled our car. I spent 2 months reading up on Mexico – so many cities and so many different customs, food, such a varied history …

The ride south was fun – in Santa Rosalia we stopped at the Chinese restaurant Beijing for lunch – we were the early birds and got #16 – huge portions so we split the dish. Eventually, a couple came in and I asked them if they were on baja Nomad and of course they were !  we met Mr and Mrs Thefishaholics !!  Such fun to be part of such a huge club !!

After Loreto, the trip is really boring and quite ugly, IMO. So, I slept for a long time.  When we hit CConstitution, famous for corrupt cops, we didn’t see any. BUT, I also realized that we are in our special car.

Special car ????  well, part of getting ready for this trip was to tint the window.  Now we ride in black black black tinted windows. You can’t see in, period.  Why did we do this ? We are going to be driving on the mainland and want to leave suitcases and things we buy in the car. So, tinted windows. Moreover, this car has Mexican license plates.  And it is our Baja car, so it is dented and rusty. My belief is that the bandidos will take a look at it and ask us if WE need some cash donations !!!!  the car looks that bad. And the truth is: at every police checkpoint on the way down, the cops looked at us and waved us on.  Poor americanos, I am sure was running thru their minds.

Upon arriving here in La Paz, we hit the internet near Dudu’s house, called him and did internet while he came to pick us up 15 min. later. We went to dinner at LA FONDA. Wonderful inexpensive dinner. Signing off, good night and guess what ????  We are on vacation !!!!!