Well we've been here almost a week now, tied up to a slip at Marina Cortez. My social calendar is suddenly active again. I have yoga each morning with other cruisers, then Mons and Thurs Celestial Navigation classes. We've taken in a Blues Festival with some excellent music, and visited friends for appies and wine. The Baja 1000 ended here in La Paz about 3 days ago. It was the 50th anniversary of the famous off-road race. So all the hotels have been full, there has been lots of fireworks displays, and roaring of jazzed up sand buggies around the city streets. Yesterday a couple of Kiwis knocked on the boat. They had entered the Baja 1000, the first ever NZ entry, and saw our NZ flag on the boat and came to say hi. It was great talking with them about the race. Apparently most teams shared the driving over a half dozen people, but these two guys shared between just the two. They said it was grueling, and sounds like their memory of it will be 44 hours with no sleep, sand and dust on everything.

George and Janet arrived back from Yellowknife yesterday. Lovely to see them and catch up on the news from our old home. We'll wait until they get their boat set up and ready and then head north to the islands together for a couple of weeks.
Today is a public holiday in Mexico, and the celebration of the Revolution. It's a big day here and there is always a parade. We stood and watched it go by for 3 hours. Many school groups marching and dancing, Navy, Military and Police bands, and many clubs (boxing, karate, netball, football, fencing, athletics) represented, mostly as marching or dancing groups, or a sporting display when they stopped at various intervals. Plus the reliable firetruck, ambulance and police vehicles with sirens going. The best, following up the rear, were the vaqueros (Mexican cowboys), on horseback twirling lassos, and beautiful women in their long frilly dresses riding side saddle.