Hot Diggity Dog

Since we've been in La Paz, Jacob and Julia on Pisces have been working hard to convince us that hot dogs are in an entirely different realm here in Mexico. So together, we decided to make it our business to find out more. Last night, we decided to do a crawl of a few of the hot dog stands that line the streets of downtown La Paz.I know, some of you are thinking that this sounds like absolute craziness. After all, how can one assume the food safety of these delightful morsels, when the vendors have no running water, or means of cleaning hands or implements, let along food. But hey...we're in Mexico, after all. And our stomachs have proved themselves to be mostly tough to the local conditions.

So after a couple of happy hour beverages at the local cruising club, Club Cruseros, we set off across town in search of the best hot dog in La Paz. For your reading pleasure, Pisces has documented our evening, hot-dog-stand by hot-dog-stand...all 5 of them. Plus of course, the corn stand that we threw in for good measure.

We agree with their rating, that our final tasting at the stand on the Malecon was by far the best. How could it not be? It was an exquisite culinary feat with hot dog, bacon, grilled ham, melted cheese, carnitos (shredded pork), lettuce, tomato, avocado, onion, mayo, ketchup, mustard...oh la la. Hot dog heaven, I tell you.

But, since this was the last dog of the evening, it was a bit more difficult to get down:

We did differ slightly from Pisces in our opinion of the number 2 rated dog. We vote for the "Radio Shack" dog. Not the especiale dog, but tasty delicious, all the same. Eric recommended this stand to us, and he was right. The best normale in town. Hard to compete against the especiale, though.

Here we are eating the "Radio Shack" dog - it was our first stand of the night, and we're obviously still very happy about this idea:
In any case, check out Pisces' blog to read their detailed account of the evening's (mis)adventures.

La Paz Living

La Paz continues to enchant us. John's spirits are high - with both a new (to him) spear gun, and a refurbished outboard motor. I am stocking our shelves with enough supplies to take us into the next phase of this adventure. And, we're enjoying sharing the company of the other cruisers down here. Here are a few images from the last week or so.

The La Paz malecon - or main drag - is a wonderful tiled walkway along the waterfront, complete with ice cream, kettle corn, and a variety of street vendors. And at this time of year, families flock to the malecon to test out their new Christmas prezzies - skateboards, bicycles, and roller blades!

Bronze statues are common along the malecon

This radar tower in front of the navy is dressed up all pretty...

Everyday involves shopping for provisions for the next leg of this adventure. This requires me to take inventory of what we currently have in Renova's stores. Here is a photo of the re-provisioning process, as a tribute to the similar photos that SV Pisces loves to share.

Isla Espiritu Santos...Boobies!

Yes, the title is a blatent attempt at gleening more visitors via keyword searches. I'll let you know how it goes.

But it isn't completely unmerited. We spent the weekend at two islands near La Paz, Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida. These are now a national park site, and are a wildlife mecca. We saw Brown Boobies, Magnificant Frigatebirds, brown pelicans, turtles and many others. At the north end of Partida you can swim with a tame group of sea lions, but we decided to save that for another day.
At the islands we hiked on shore amid cacti and gecko to explore the beaches and fishing camps. John was ever hopeful with a fishing line off the stern of the boat...and even a small line off the dinghy as we went to shore. We swam in glorious, torquoise waters (and scrubbed the hull, while we were there). We devoured a fabulous fresh-caught snapper meal on board Wandering Star, along with the crews of Magenta, and Jesse's Girl.After this quick 2-day escape, we're now back in La Paz. We wanted to try to get a spear fishing gun for John, have someone look at our non-starting 1972 outboard engine, and stock up on a few odds and ends and provisions, once again. And...perhaps one more lunch at the ever-delightful Mercado Bravo.

2009 Blog Stats

Inspired by this post on our techno-wizard friends' blog: Hello World, I thought I'd take a look at our blog stats for 2009. This is what I found out (we launched the blog in August 2009):

3,078 Visits
579 Unique Visitors
5,346 Page Views

58% of visitors come to the site directly
11% of visitors come via google
9% of visitors find us via blogger
6% of visitors come via a hotmail link (likely my email signature)

Our visitors hail mostly from Canada and the USA, but also consistent number from UK and throughout Europe, and odd numbers from all sorts of countries around the globe. Brazil, seems to also have high number of visitors for some reason??

The keywords that people used to find us were mostly typical - some combination of our names, the boat name/model, etc. Other questionable/humorous keywords were:

• engine cleaners
• renova .02 pump
  
• renova more:drug_warnings_recalls
  

Obviously, I need to take a page from Hello World, and write more posts about Blue-footed Boobies and turkish hookers, if I really want to increase my readership. Hmmm... perhaps a resolution for 2010 is in the works here...

Bringing in the New Year

New Year's Eve saw me enjoying drinks with a few other couples on board Hello World, with the crews of Pisces, and Bint al Khamseen. We had a great night, chatting about boats and our travel plans, and watching the shoreside fireworks. John spent the evening eating sushi with Ron, and enduring long lines in the airport.

Now that John's back in La Paz, we've jumped into a few more boat projects, and are enjoying spending time with our new friends. We've got a few things accomplished, but we are definitely finding that this place really does have a black hole quality to it... it is hard to leave the good living of La Paz - shopping is easy, boat work is easy, the marina is cheap, the internet is good, and the language barrier is getting easier...plus most places speak some english.

We've tried to leave the marina a couple of times, but have always found a very important reason to stay another night. We're planning to head to the anchorage again today, then look into hauling out the boat to paint her bottom.

Many of you have asked about our plans...we're leaning towards heading south, across to mainland Mexico, and then jumping to the Galapagos in February. Lots to do.

One of the many bronze statues that line the Malecon in La Paz:

Merry Christmas

Wishing all of you a fabulous Christmas!!

It's been a different Christmas this year, but good all the same. With John gone, my Christmas Eve started with a sleepless night, as the wind howled through the marina, I was up several times to check our lines throughout the night. Come morning, I moved the boat to a slightly more protected slip, then it was off to the markets with Mary from Sorceress! We wandered through downtown looking for fresh produce and assorted odds and ends. Of course it was a zoo, with lots of last minute shoppers out and about, and the street vendors in full force. But it was great to explore with Mary, as she has been coming to La Paz for 10 years, and knew all the best places to shop, and most of the shop keepers. We found our needed supplies, and headed back to the marina, after a fabulous lunch of chile rellanos. Mmmm....

I spent the evening with new friends on Pisces, Jacob and Julia, and their friends Curt and Nancy from Raven. Jacob ferried Curt, Nancy and I out from the docks to their anchored boat - doing three wet trips through the chop in their 2 passenger dinghy. Julia made a spectacular rib roast, along with knoodles (german specialty - sp??), and we enjoyed the evening sharing stories about our travels so far, and the nuances of each of our boats. As it turns out - Curt and Nancy had looked at Renova when she was for sale a few years back. Small world. After dinner we wandered downtown (again, thanks to Jacob's ferry service), and found ourselves at Midnight Mass in a large catholic church, presided by the bishop! It was a fascinating experience. Some notable moments included:

• The bishop and his 'team' were ushered in to the tune of Jingle Bells.
• The music throughout the service was provided by a BAND...complete with vocalists, electric guitars, bass, violin, snare drum and cow bell.
  
• Listening to a service in another language is fascinating....it allows one to imagine what the content of the service is, but also to listen to the tone of the speakers, paying attention to the fine details that aren't as obvious when you are focused on the content.
  
• The church was stunning - there was standing room only, and the congregation was obviously very devout.
• The incense that was burned throughout the service was strong and tickled at the eyes and throats of us gringos. The locals seemed less affected, although there were sporadic coughing fits throughout the service.
  
• All of the hymns/carols were familiar melodies, but in Spanish, making the differences in language seem less significant somehow.

Today, Christmas Day, I joined Eric and Mary for a fabulous dinner on board Sorceress, where we ate like champions!! They have been my Christmas Angels - taking care of me, and checking in to make sure I'm ok - even delivering gifts! Eric has great stories and information on spear fishing, and Mary has a talent for pouring delightfully yummy drinks. What a great team!!

Driving Inland

Although the bus was cheaper, we decided to rent a car to get John to the airport at San Jose del Cabo, a couple of hours away from La Paz. It turned out to be a great trip, as we stopped for breakfast to check out La Ventana and scope out where we might stay on our next trip here. We also passed over the Tropic of Cancer, and stopped at the beautiful beaches of Los Barriles.

Here are a few of my observations from this trip...

• roadside shrines - from the very simple to the elaborate and decadent - serve as a continual reminder that it is probably a good idea to drive the speed limit (or close to it);
• the numerous empty beer cans strewn along the road side, have a very similar effect;
• in Mexico, it is unnecessary to mark upcoming speed bumps - (thankfully it's a rental);
• learning the rules of the road by following the cars in front has not always proven to provide me with the best interpretation of the legal driving regulations;
• stop signs are indicative that there may be traffic coming from an alternate direction - the actual stopping part is left up to the discretion of the driver;
• cows, sheep, goats and dogs all roam freely along, and on, roadways; and
  
• the ecosystem changes wildly within a relatively small amount of time/kms - ranging from flat, arid regions, where cacti seem to be the only vegetation for miles, to lush valley bottoms with a diversity of shrubbery and vegetation.
  

Apparently, it blew hard all day while we were away from the boat. Our neighbors, Eric and Mary, have been a blessing...they watched the boat while we were gone, and welcomed me back at the end of a long day with a drink and good conversation.

The Flood...

Sorry about the lack of blog posts. It's been a busy few days.

Last night, we received news that our home in Campbell River had flooded, as a result of a cracked toilet tank. Sheesh. Thankfully Darren and Ken were quickly on scene to mitigate the damage. Because we have a storage locker in the house with our 'stuff', we were worried that the boxes were all wet, and would need to be sorted and dried out. We quickly booked a plane ticket home for John, and agreed that I would stay behind in La Paz to watch the boat.

Today, we replaced more of the hoses on our head system, and generally got ready for John's departure. We've rented a car to drive John to the airport at Cabo tomorrow, so we also did a huge provisioning shopping trip, and an excursion to Home Depot (yep - even in Mexico) to grab insulation for our poor fridge.

Happiness is....

I blew out my flip flop
Stepped on a pop-top
Cut my heel, had to cruise on back home
But there's booze in the blender
And soon it will render
That frozen concoction that helps me hang on

---Jimmy Buffet---

Happiness is...(I know the suspense is killing you)... a new pair of flip flops. Three weeks is a VERY long time to be flip-flop-less. It is also a long time to live with someone who is flip-flop-less....just ask John.

And...because it is Christmas...this is my gift to you...click here.

To La Paz....Eat Your Heart Out

This post is dedicated to our many fanatic fisher-friends...you know who you are:


This is our first Dorado...a prized game fish in these parts (also known as Mahi-Mahi). We caught him about an hour before we reached the La Paz Harbour, shortly after John fell asleep. It was an exciting fish to bring to the boat, and he didn't dissapoint. The colors in the photo above are very muted, compared to when he was fighting on the line, and he flashed various shades of green, blue, yellow and silver - it was beautiful. And...I heard unfamiliar words from John - "Are we going to keep it"? We did, of course. We quickly filleted it, and turned on the fridge to super cold. We made ceviche out of a portion of the fish, fried some up for lunch immediately, and attempted to freeze the remainder.

Making the ceviche...note to self: buy lime juicing gadget....

Otherwise, our passage to La Paz was uneventful. We left at 1:00 in the morning, and arrived 8 hours later, with calm seas and little wind for the entire trip. We tied up in a marina in anticipation of our first proper shower in three weeks. We were also excited about the prospect of laundry - which has been waiting even longer. After several weeks on the boat, in various sea conditions, and sitting at anchor, every surface was covered in salt. We were looking forward to giving the boat and ourselves a good hose down.

Shortly after we arrived, Narama also tied up in the marina. Heidi and Steve joined us that evening to share in the bounty of the fresh Dorado.