La Paz, Mexico - What a beautiful place!

Hi there World Travelers! I wanted to record the beauty and peace of La Paz in case there was anyone "out there" thinking of visiting. Oddly, when I uploaded my photos to this blog, they all went on in reverse order. I keep trying to fix this, but they ignore me an stubbornly stay in the wrong order. So please forgive me, and just look at the pic's top to bottom. This is a long post, mostly because I want to record the day for my kids.

La Paz, Mexico. When you arrive in port, you actually land in Puerto de Pichilingue. (Pee-chee-lean-gay). There were mariachi to welcome us, and some little stalls and a few tents with vendors selling their wares. You walk into the building (shown down at the bottom of the photos) and are handed a map of La Paz, one per family. (Women - GET THE MAP. I let Mike take it and I had no idea it held the route to the "marketplace.") Then you board a bus, which is comfy, air conditioned and had cushy seats, like the kind you would have on a chartered bus, not a school bus. It did have a bathroom which I did not use. There was a "host" who told us little tidbits about Pichilingue and La Paz. Apparently the majority of day to day goods are imported although they do have a power plant. The host tried to teach us "Cielieto Lindo" and told us that it would be part of our return ticket if we wanted to get back on the bus. He was of course kidding. I'm just trying to show that he was friendly. He was (I think) very new to playing tour guide on the way to La Paz, but he did a good job. He said that there was a rock formation that you could only see on your way back to the ship that they called something like "the old woman". We never saw it, but as we were going back to the boat Mike saw a poster and excitedly said "I bet this is what he was talking about!" I think my photo of that might just be about in the right place. Just a fun little thing, but I liked it.

As we drove along, the guide/host showed us these beautiful coastal areas with names like "treasure cove" (because buried treasure was found there) and "Stingray Cove" (because apparently the water is shallow and warm so the stingrays like to hang out and....sting things there.) The water was sooo clear, we only saw it from the bus windows, but they were beautiful.

So we got into La Paz after about a 30 or so min. bus ride around 9:30am. You walk in the bus terminal, and because it was the dia after the Dia de los Muertos they still had a small shrine for someone that had passed. I had looked everywhere for proof that Dia de los Muertos was still celebrated in Cabo, and not finding it, I shot a photo of this. There were several small shrines set up for the holiday around town. You walk through the bus terminal, and there you are with shops to the left and the right, and before you - the ocean, and this neat seagull statue. All along the ocean from time to time are these great copper (now green) statues. It was a Monday morning and no one was really at the beach. It was hot hot hot already, so I thought that was odd. Then I realized that none of the stores were really open yet either. There were a bunch of people in line at one store, where the line went out the door and down the street and around a corner. Mike went up to find out why, what were they waiting for? It looked like a bank to me. Turns out cable TV had just gotten to La Paz and they all wanted to sign up for it.

La Paz is one of those unique places where it felt like Mexico. Cabo in the 1980's was the same way. No one hassled you to buy stuff, there weren't 50 or so street vendors offering you "real silver Lady! Only a buck!" or asking you to buy a doll or whatever. People were just going about their lives and seemed kind of surprised to see all the tourists there. Anyway, at 9:30am there really isn't much open. So you walk, and sweat. It's really humid there, and I think it was like 95 degrees. (I think that day at home it was about 65 degrees and had rained the day before. *sigh*) Most of the people did not want to haggle about prices. The price marked was firm, and many of them did not speak english or know how to convert American money to pesos. I thought this was cool. I wanted to see a Mexican city, not little California. I guess it really, really annoyed a lot of the people.

While we walked the city, looking for someone to sell us something (grin) I was taken with all of the statues and buildings around. There was a Wyland wall that was gorgeous, and near by was these 3 odd statues of women wearing seashells for bodies. There was this great old brick building that was now only one wall, and we passed it about 4 times and each time I just wanted to kind of stare at it. Trucks drive up and down the street with those billboards attached to the back like you see here in the US but they played loud music to attract your attention. My Mom said they used to do that back when she was younger in the US. There was a big department called "3 Hermanos" (3 brothers) that I wanted to check out, but was closed. Another one, called "Mas" looked cool, but I saw it near the end of our visit and we were too focused on finding the marketplace to stop and check it out. (Mas means "More!" I figured we could all use a little Mas!) Before my folks left us my Dad took a picture of us by a statue that was called "The Pearl of Jesus" or "Jesus of the Pearl" something like that. It had been sunk off the coast to give divers something cool to look at in 1995 or '97 and had recently been brought back up and displayed. You couldn't tell that it had been underwater.

After my folks left we were standing along the ocean, I decided that while Mike talked to some guy in a boat the boys and I would walk along the ocean. We found a sand bar and Squish and I took off our shoes and waded in the crystal clear water. There were little silver fish that swam around our feet and we looked for shells in the orange-y creamy colored sand. Mr. W was positive he had to sit on the wall and protect the backpacks. Mike finally picked him up, took off his shoes, and he carried him into the ocean. I was surprised by how many shells there were, and how tiny there were. Wading there in the ocean made my trip. Yes, I'm simple. I love clear ocean water. La Paz is the 5th best place to dive in the world and Mike was on one level or another dying to go back under the sea. But he was sweet and stayed with us. I hope we can go back soon, for longer, so he could dive and still have time to translate for us. We decided to go in search of trinkets, (to make the Momma happy) so off we went.

We came upon some tourists who told us they were looking for the marketplace, which they showed us on the map. BLESS THEM - THEY SHOWED ME THE MAP. It hadn't occurred to me that the map had information on it we needed. DUH. So, none of us could tell where we were, so we huddled in the doorway of a teen apparel store doorway's shade (our faces were so sweaty it was embarrassing!) Mike went and habla'd with - as luck would have it - a paramedic at a Jack in the Box. She told us where it was and we went off, looking for it. It was supposed to be about 9 blocks or so. While we were walking I decided we all needed something to drink. We found a soda & water machine, but it only took pesos. These 2 local men were walking by, and offered us thier pocket change to buy a drink. We didn't take them up on it because we needed 4 and that would be too much. But can you imagine being out, realizing you didn't have enough money, and having a total stranger offer to buy you a soda? They were truly good Samaritans!

We were walking up a gentle hill at this point, and I was trying to be the brave Mommy whose face was sweating off and watching our children melt into puddles. Thankfully, we soon turned a corner and found a leather boot shop that had a soda refrigerator out in front. We ripped open the door and chose our sodas. Oh, I was holding something cold in my hand! The saleswoman came out all friendly, with a smile that said "you aren't going to steal my sodas are you?" We asked her how much, and realized she didn't speak much English. she said 40, 10 each. Mike said "no, it can't be 10 each." I was so thirsty, I didn't think that she meant 10 dollars but I was ready to pay that for my bottle of cold apple soda. (I LOVE apple soda.) She and Mike are kind of discussing the cost, Mike keeps saying "you can't mean 40" and she's saying, "si, 40." So I pull out my 3 years of high school Spanish and say (mostly in english you'll note): "do you mean diez, diez, diez, diez?" (10, 10, 10, 10?) She says "si, diez, diez, diez, and diez." Clearly we are speaking the same language - woman speak! I say "great!" and walk in the store to pay, pretty sure we can work this out at the register, but ready to pay what I had to get a drink for our boys. We ended up paying a little extra because the cashier didn't have any American money, but they were $1.00 each. They were worth the $10. because they gave us that oomph to keep going. (Can you say "sugar rush?")

Suddenly we were in the marketplace. And even more shocking, they had all opened their shops! It was about noon. The kids were getting out of school, and the city woke up. They had all these fabulous open air stores, where you could buy lots of stuff by the scoop. Spices, dog food, pasta, dried herbs and peppers, all by the scoop. We found this great party supply store that had these 4 or 5 foot tall pinatas out in front and lots of fun things inside. We found this great spice/pasta/dog food shop where the nicest people worked. Steven is in a photo by some of the bins of merchandise. They only spoke spanish, but when they learned we were visiting they talked to us about the spices, how they ground the peppers to make the very colorful powdered pepper spices, and there's one shot that has these brown cone shaped things in them. That's sugar cane! I tried some, it was...sugar! It was kind of scary to put in my mouth, but they were so excited to give us samples, I didn't want to turn them down. The shopkeeper kept taking pinches of the powdered peppers and wanted us to do the same. Just walk up and take a pinch. After much encouragement Mike did. When I look at the photos now and see the dog food right next to the spices I laugh. The store was really cool, and I wanted to buy something to thank them for their hospitality, but I knew I couldn't take food back with me on the ship. So I bought another apple soda! And his were cheaper, and he gave us change. I should have bought 6. If I had known I wouldn't have much to buy in La Paz I would have. There were street vendors, but they didn't hassle you. One was selling this white stuff in a large green stem that was cut open on one side. It was fresh sugar cane. I wish we'd stopped to look, but we were trying to see it all. At one point in the morning my dad was happy to see a vendor with a cart labeled "hot dogs." Hey, we all get excited about different things.

As we walked, Squish found a sort of open air pet store. It was almost in a garage with the door up. But not anyplace near a home. The boy who longs for a pet gave me the dimples, but we didn't think the US customs would much appreciate bringing a pet back, nor would the cruise ship or Daddy's allergies, so we kept walking.

Eventually we found this wonderful store that had these adorable Barbie dresses in the window. It was a bridal store, but the dolls were wearing traditional sequined and/or regular cotton Mexican dresses complete with petticoats. I had to stop! There is a photo of the shop owner and his nice employee who did not speak any English. But the owner did, and he told us of living in Orange County, CA and picking strawberries 20 years ago for 10 dollars a day. He said he moved to La Paz and it is the best city in Mexico. I agreed with him. Everyone there was just as nice as could be. Mr. W and Squish got a little boyish while I was ooohing and ahhhing over the Barbie dresses but they didn't mind and it was a great experience.

About that time we realized we were out of time, and while we hadn't really shopped, it was time to head back. It turned out we were closer than we thought, and poof! There we were at the bus terminal. La Paz was a wonderful port, and I wish we could have had much more time there.

Did you really read this far? Wow. Go have some chocolate now, you deserve it! It took me about 2 hours to write this, I hope it didn't take that long to read!
Thanks, Barb