A New Slideshow!

Here is a bunch of new pictures... I'm currently sitting in a coffeeshop waiting for a Skype call and Leonard is out surfing - his new favorite thing!

Hope you'll enjoy our new batch of pictures.

A New Slideshow!

We've been gone for... how long now? Yesterday we dropped anchor in Bahia Tortugas (Turtle Bay) which is half way between San Diego and Cabo San Lucas. Last year the couple of days leading to our arrival at this spot was beyond frightening with horrendous storms and a fuel shortage under head-on winds of 30 knots. Not fun. But this year it's been perfectly perfect!

I wanted to share with you a first batch of pics with this slideshow. Hope you enjoy!

Crossing the Sea of Cortez

Sorry, it's been a while! I think something in me changed somewhere along the way as we crossed the Sea of Cortez. I went from counting the days until we might return to San Diego to... (get ready for this one) simply enjoying myself, enjoying being on this amazing trip and simply living in the moment.

Could that explain why I've neglecting writing on this travel blog? Maybe...

Stop and Smell the Roses...

What a show-off! This young whale was putting on quite a display!

Since the beginning of our journey, we'd barely seen any whales at all. Which is atypical of this area... Normally they're spotted daily. When chatting with other travelers we discover we aren't alone in this world of no-whale spotting.

And then...

Dolphin Fiesta!

This was beyond cool!

Sailing from La Paz to Cabo to hook up with friends from Sioux Falls we encountered a crazy dolphin crossing. They don't really show up in the distance in this video plus there was well over a thousand of them swimming around us, jumping and doing their world famous dolphin dives and their daredevil antics of jumping across the bow of our boat.

Everything Takes Time... And Patience.

Broom Hilda? Come se dice en espanol?

Which we have plenty of (time), but the patience part? A whole n'other ball game! At least where I'm concerned that is! Not very patient at all...  *sigh* (Just ask Leonard in regards to the ongoing torture I've put him through these past few days because of my internet connection issues!)

La Paz has stores on every street corner. Some stores are "tiendas" like small general stores and hold everything from parts to build your own propane BBQ, to awesome terra cotta dishes and brooms. (Oh yeah, most stores have buckets of brooms right out the door, it appears as though these are always in need, especially when people sweep the sidewalks!) You can always find the unexpected...

The problem is finding what you're actually looking for!

And it's cool how some stores are almost organized per district. If you see a "everything-you-need-for-making-a-piñata" store chances are you'll find another right around the corner, and another one across the street.  And yes Virginia, there is a piñata store!

See? I told'ya!

But back (hee hee, I just said "but back", ya get it?) to finding what you're specifically looking for... Here's the simple stuff what we've been struggling with:

• Markers. Regular old Crayola Super Tips Markers that WalMart sells at $5 for 40 markers of all colors! Kids are forced to color with crayons (wax kind) or pencils (wooden kind). Isn't that a sad thought for Mexican kids?
• Pie dough. No dough! Here if you want pie you gotta make it yourself! And that means that I now also need a pie plate!
• Half & Half Cream. Yeah they drink coffee here, but I guess they use milk or drink it black. If you ask for "crema para cafe" in a store they'll show you a can of cream that once opened has the consistency of sour cream. WTH?
• Sunscreen. Oddly enough the sun shines here. Plenty. You would think this item would be a given. Actually I found some today, but it was total block. I don't want to block the sun I just don't want to be scorched by it!
• Mushrooms. Am I hallucinating or are they simply not there? Again, today I finally found some mushrooms after searching and searching numerous stores, markets, etc. But still no baby bellas (my all-time fave) or portabellas. Sigh.
• Caps. More specifically caps for gas cans. We have 2 diesel fuel jugs to hold extra fuel for the long distance runs and for some reason the caps broke! They just simply snapped off the top from being over-tightened. Our jugs are fine (at least I know my jugs are okey-dokey) but the caps are now useless. I've used up my shoes walking this town looking for caps. Nada. (See how at least I put good use to the Spanish I'm learning?)
• 12-Pack of Coke. Forget about it. At least the regular Diet Coke with no added flavors of vanilla, or cherry, or other weird stuff. Can't do it. I guess Mexicans aren't about stocking up like their Northern neighbors - and simply purchase soda one can at a time. 

Mmmm... beer! Now THAT'S a tall one!

p.s. with everything coming in the quantity of "some of this" and "some of that" and "can't find some" you'd think the word "some" would be something I wouldn't struggle with when it comes to translating to Spanish!

Yay! More Pictures!

These are NEW pictures... Most are from our recent trip to local islands. We saw some really cool stuff! Sorry about that pig head to start off. Or to think again - I'm not sorry. I thought it was really freaky to see that head sitting in an open meat counter. Can we say that? A sitting head? And the dudes got a kick out of watching some little gringa snap a quick shot of their meat.

That came out all wrong.

But you'll see lot's of bones on this slideshow. I think a good deal of those bones are whale bones. Really cool. And skulls. Probably leftovers from the meat market displaying the heads... Who knows.

Its a new year and we're getting more and more thrilled by this little journey!

Cheers! And like we say in this neck of the woods: hasta luego!

Sidewalks.

I've learned with time and experience to ALWAYS pay extra attention to what I'm doing, or more specifically where I am going and how I put my foot down in the city of La Paz.

The sidewalks are insane. To repeat a famous and over done cliché "You never know what you're gonna get!" Sudden holes, drops of over 5 feet to the street, cracks, change of levels or amazingly beautiful tiles. The sidewalks of La Paz have everything to offer to amaze you or have you tripping over yourself!

The majority of these pics were taken in 2 days. Not that we had to walk all over town to find the best shots, they are all over the place. Just 2 days of running to the market and doing our errands...