La Paz - and a Quick Trip to San Diego
04 June 2021 | La Paz, Mexico, and San Diego, California
Maeve Murphy | Hot/warm
4th-15th May
It had gotten really hot in Marina de la Paz since we were here in December. Quieter, too - most cruisers have either left by now for cooler regions out of the hurricane belt, are on their way to Central America or the South Pacific, or have closed up their boats or put them in dry dock for the summer. But a few folks were still around, and some hardcore cruisers would remain through the whole of the blisteringly hot summer.
We spent our time getting ready for the next leg north, and trying to keep the boat and ourselves cool. Daily temps were already in the mid-90s to 100, and by 2 or 3pm each day it was uncomfortably stuffy and warm in the cabin, even with our little electric fans running 24/7 (Honu's deck absorbs heat). The Dock Cafe at the marina became our afternoon escape. We'd park ourselves in its shady patio where the light breezes blew through just right, drink cold juices and frappucchinos and work on our laptops. In the mornings I joined the joggers and dog-walkers for a brisk walk along La Paz's beautiful malecon. I tried to finish my exertions before 9am when it became just too dang hot.
One very hot day we ventured out to the local municipal covered market to grab some lunch at a taco stand and some produce. I never carry an umbrella for shade but I did that day! The market had a fabulously colorful shrine to the Virgin Mary with a kind of desert theme. Mary is much revered in Mexico and her image is everywhere.
We'd been trying to figure out how to get our Covid vaccinations. Even more urgently, our Mexican visas were about to expire. So we hastily arranged a three-day trip across the border to San Diego. We flew Calafia Airlines from La Paz to Tijuana - a two-hour hop - then walked across the border and took an Uber the 30 minutes to a hostel in the Hillcrest neighborhood in San Diego. Hillcrest is a relaxed, LGBTQ-friendly neighborhood with lots of quirky little eateries (best cafe name: 'Breakfast Bitch'), good thrift-store shopping, and Bread and CIE, a quality French-style bakery with the most delicious pastries that got the stamp of approval even from very discerning Bernard. We'd lined up appointments for our shots at a nearby Walgreen's, and had a lunch date with my niece, who was on the home stretch to graduation from UCSD. We picked up some organic peanut butter with no added sugar in a glass jar (difficult or impossible to find in Mexico) for me, almond butter for Bernard, and some fair-trade organic chocolate (also hard to find south of the border) for those long nighttime watches at sea.
The border crossing is a strange experience; it's basically entering an airport-like building, going up an elevator, walking down long corridors, going down again, and making your way through customs and immigration (where we renewed our visas) until you land in the airport on the other side - and voilà, you're in Mexico. You only see the infamous border wall if you get very close to the windows along one corridor during the crossing and peer at a certain angle. It's a stout, ugly, forbidding wall, and you'd hardly know it was there if you didn't make an effort to see it. I played the song 'Why We Build the Wall' by Anaïs Mitchell - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBGUqMyyvnI - for Bernard on my phone, a song that just hit me between the eyes with the piercing tragedy and truth of it when I first heard it.
We had a bit of hassle going through security when they discovered the peanut and almond butters in our carry-on luggage. Apparently they're classified as 'liquids' (??), of which we were only allowed 100 mm per container. I wanted to yell half in frustration and half in jest, "I'm vegetarian and you're taking away my protein!" But it was back to the check-in counter to check the bag with the offending articles for transport in the plane's hold, where they could do no harm. Otherwise it had been a very smooth and easy trip back and forth for us.