Side note:  I started this blog post while we were still in La Paz and of course, didn’t finish it before leaving.  So now, its two weeks later and we are on the cusp of being home in BC.  I booked us in at a lodge just outside of Ashland, Oregon, not realizing that a “lodge” would mean in the mountains, which would mean higher elevation and snow!  So, here I am, finishing this post that started in a sunny warm place looking at the snow outside our window.  A good way to help us transition?  Karma for leaving everyone else to deal with snow all winter? Something on the wish list of our dear friends in La Paz?  Probably a little of each of these.  Ah well, at least there is no snow on the road and the days ahead will bring us stays with our family and friends up North, so what better place to complete this?  At the age of 58, my maternal grandmother was widowed.  She was known as Maggie to everyone except for her two daughters, who she allowed to call her mother.  Other than that, she was Maggie, and a force to be reconned with.  She had always wanted to travel, and with no husband and her daughters grown and married, she had nothing to hold her back and so she sold the house that she had shared with my grandfather and his half of the fish packing business that he had helped to create back in 1923.  By putting the money into savings accounts at several banks (having gone through the Depression, she didn’t trust banks) and living on the interest from this and her small teacher’s pension, she embarked on the life of travel that she must have always imagined.  I remember receiving gits from all over the world from her and when she was in town, hearing stories of her many adventures.  All in all, she made three round-the-world trips.  But eventually, the need to travel to new and exciting destinations waned and Maggie wanted a somewhat more settled life, but...

The Baja 1000 is a famous off-road race, where intrepid drivers on both motorcycles and dune buggies race through back roads down the spine of the Baja, making a loop at the south end before heading back north again.  Cyclists have also taken to riding the Divide, an adventure that is a bit too rich for our blood.  We met a young man last year who had just completed the North/South portion of the ride and was off to complete “The Loop”, which included cycling off road around the tip of the Baja South from La Paz to Cabo and then back again – quite the adventure!  While not being tempted to complete this off-road feat, having a week between rentals afforded us the opportunity to drive the loop in a bit more civilized fashion in our van.  We began with the drive over to Los Barriles, a now familiar road that we had driven with our good friend Nadya when she took us on our epic rock-climbing trip not too long ago.  On this day, we were heading over to Barriles for a day with a different kind of flavour.  The first stop was at the very popular Pickle Ball court in Barriles.  No, we are not taking up this ever-growing sport (not yet at least!), but it was a place to meet up with friends from up north who were staying nearby.  We have known Alix and Gordon for many years but haven’t seen them since before the pandemic, so a chance to catch up just couldn’t be passed up.  Having enjoyed both the good company of friends and a great lunch, we ventured further to the town of La Ribera where we had a rare hotel stay booked for the night.  A chance encounter with a local earlier in our stay in La Paz had awakened our curiosity about this little town situated just 30 minutes from Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park.  It is a typical little town with a paved road running along the outskirts and dirt roads within.  Having gotten excellent directions from the owner...

History, as it was taught when I was young, can be pretty dry and boring.  Read a text book, memorize a bunch of dates and names (something I am NOT good at!) and take a test.  I did have one teacher, Mr. Glennon, who was rather passionate about the subject of American History.  He would march around the front of the classroom, pen over his shoulder like a rifle, expounding on the details of some battle fought long ago.  Other than that, my experiences with learning about history were rather dull.  When I began teaching older elementary students, I was thankfully working with a staff of amazing and creative teachers.  One, Glyn Davies, was a master – truly!  He won a national award for teaching excellence!  His methods, which I gladly adopted, were to encourage his students to become the “experts” so that they could teach others.  When it came to learning about Ancient Civilizations, for example, we would decide what the criteria for a society was (food, shelter, technology, etc) and the students would then go to town learning about their specific area.  From this, they would create a display and when we had a big “Expo” with all three Grade 6/7 classes, our students would proudly teach the younger visitors all about their subject matter.  Not only did our students learn how to find out information, but also how to teach it to others in an interesting way.  It was such a pleasure to work educators like this!  I was reminded of our student “docents” recently as we toured the Museum of Anthropology here in La Paz.  Part of the museum has been marked with QR codes so that one can instantly read about the subject matter in their own language, which was extremely helpful.  Even more enjoyable though, was meeting a docent on the next floor where there were no such codes.  This young man was fluent in English and very excited to be able to share his knowledge of both the history of this region and the current political scene as he sees it.  His enthusiasm...

In the time we have been here I have noticed that I am a different person than the woman I was at home in British Columbia.  I find myself asking the question, “Who are you? Where have you come from?  Who is this person trying all these crazy things?” Maybe I am asking the wrong question.  Maybe it's not a question of “where” but “when”.  When I was a wild child, I tried everything, from skiing down a mountainside at full tilt to jumping in to swim across a lake with no thought as to whether or not it was safe.  Of course, this led to a few injuries along the way – a severe knee sprain from falling while charging down a hill, an almost drowning from following my big brother, Tom across a lake too deep for me.  These occurrences did eventually slow me down. I developed fears.  I became terrified of heights and going too fast, no longer bombing down the ski hill, but gingerly picking my way slowly to the bottom. When my mom put me in swimming lessons, I found that no matter how hard I tried, I could not make myself dive headfirst into the dark water off the dock of the pretty lake where I had felt very comfortable splashing around just the year before.  In the summer, instead of feeling the freedom of sleeping out of doors (in our own backyard!) I was terrified that a bear would come and attack me – seriously, I really was!  I grew into a more cautious adult.  One who never experimented with the things that most of my contemporaries who grew up in the 60s and 70s eagerly participated in.  I became “Suzy Cream Cheese”, a wholesome white bread girl who didn’t do “bad” or “dangerous” things.  And that’s pretty much how I stayed for most of my adult life.  When the kids went swimming at the local lake just a year ago, they tried to get me to jump in with them, but no way!  That was too scary and too cold!  Camping for...

One thing that makes La Paz a great place for us is the plethora of beaches within a 20 minute drive from town.  We made great use of these beaches during the two weeks we were in town before moving into our apartment, staying at first one and then another for a whole lot of snorkelling, some paddling and a great deal of sitting and relaxing.  Its funny, because when I’ve talked to others about how much we enjoy sitting on the beach here, some will say how boring they find beaches, and this may be true in other locations, but not here.  Here you will always find something to look at while you sit.  It might be a squadron of pelicans swooping down to find their dinner, or a sailboat lazily progressing from one side of the horizon to the other.  Occasionally the gigantic Baja Ferry can been seen making its way either to or from Mazatlán.  In the water, of course, there is a whole other world just awaiting your arrival.  We always find it so funny to look out at the water, thinking there’s nothing there and then, when we put our faces in with our masks and snorkels on, there are just so many fish!!  Its crazy!  So today I will introduce you to our favourite beaches (or playas) around La Paz.  Each one has its own special characteristics that make it a good destination for a day or two. Balandra This is the beach featured in every single post you read about La Paz and for good reason.  It is simply stunning.  With its white sandy beach lying in a protected cove, there are never big waves to contend with.  Indeed, the shallowness of the bay makes it difficult for boats to put in, which just adds to its appeal.  It looks like a giant wading pool, and you have to walk in quite a distance to get to deeper water for swimming.  Of course, what makes Balandra such a beautiful beach also makes it a difficult place to visit during the height of the...

We awoke to a view of the calm, impossibly blue waters of our little bay, called La Puerla.  It has been a quiet night and we were looking forward to getting out on the water with the paddle boards.  Having learned our lesson from the last time we used them, we had blown them up the previous evening, setting them in our palapa for the night.  We ate and had our coffee before setting out on the day’s adventure.  Of course, by the time we had finished, a small ripple had appeared on the water, but it was negligible so we confidently hopped on our boards and started to paddle around the small island we had seen the night before.  It was a short distance away and didn’t look too big, so we figured we had plenty of time before the afternoon winds kicked in.  As we moved out of our little cover, the waves grew slightly larger, but not too big and we both stayed standing as we paddled, practicing our newly learned J-strokes as we moved along.  We were moving expeditiously and were really enjoying the beauty of the morning.  Off in the distance, we noticed a pod of dolphins splashing along.  What a sight!  So quiet, so peaceful, so wonderful.  Ah, this was what we were wanting when we brought the paddle boards with us!  A perfect day!   As we approached the little island, the waves grew larger.  To maintain our balance we dropped down to our knees.  We had a decision to make: going right would lead us around the outside of the island but into still larger waves and to the left would mean a shorter paddle to the little beach we had waded out to the day before.  Not wanting to stop, we chose the longer route and were soon sitting, the waves having grown quite challenging.  However, we had a nice wind at our backs so the paddling was not too strenuous. We enjoyed the view of the little island – its craggy rocks with spots of green where plants managed to take...

There are a few towns that we did stop at on our way down to La Paz, and at each one, the inevitable comparison was made – how does this place stack up against La Paz?  Can we see ourselves spending more than a few days here?  A month?  A winter? A lifetime?  La Paz is the only place we have spent time in since our retirement where we could actually say, “I could easily live here forever”.  Of course, there is the little caveat that we have not spent a summer in the heat of La Paz, so we may never want to spend the entire year here, but gosh, it sure is tempting to try and we have met a lot of folks who have moved here permanently from both Canada and the States.  But I digress.  Before extolling the wonders of this city that has so obviously captured our hearts, what about those other places.  Might one of them replace La Paz?  Join me on this review and see. First up, San Felipe.  Of course, we didn’t spend as much time here as we might have, but we did get a little of the flavour of it and there are many who choose to spend their winters here.  To it’s advantage, it is a lot closer to the border than any of the other places we stopped at, and it is still on the Sea of Cortez, so there’s the opportunity to engage in fishing, swimming, paddle boarding and snorkelling (although having not gone in, we cannot attest to the quality of the snorkelling here).  If you come down with your 4 wheel drive rig, there are also lots of places to go off roading around Felipe.  In fact, when we stayed at Kiki’s Campground, probably half of the people staying there were all geared up to either drive their dune buggies or their dirt bikes on the trails here.  We stopped in at the Valley of the Giants, a popular off roading spot where you could wander through giant cactus.  Of course, with the van, we...

When we first talked about driving down the Baja after our return last year, we were met with some skepticism.  Why would we drive such a long distance!  Wouldn't it be dangerous? Everyone had a story to tell of someone they had heard of who were robbed on the dangerous roads in Mexico.  Or had run out of gas in the middle of the desert.  Or had wrecked their car on the horrible roads. Or, or or...  But over the months before leaving, we quietly persisted in our planning.  We made a list of all the extra things we would need for the trip - a spare tire on a rim (which weighs a TON, by the way!), a gas can, lots of water jugs, some special things so we could let air out of the tires and refill them if we got stuck in the sand.  The list was long and Jim was meticulous in reading lots of blogs about driving the Baja.  He joined a few Facebook pages where we could get up to date information about the road conditions.  We watched a lot of YouTube videos extolling life on the road in the Baja.  And all the while, we kept hearing our friends and loved ones voicing their concerns about our safety.  Its good to be loved and to have people worry about you, but sometimes its kind of stifling.  When it was time to go, there was a sense of relief that we were finally on the road to a new adventure.  We would heed the warnings, and not take silly chances of course, but we were determined to enjoy this wonderful opportunity to explore a new place.   So, once we made it past the border (Oh my, was that not ridiculous?) and arrived in San Felipe, our Baja adventure had truly begun.  In other posts I will write about things we did along the way, but for this one, I just wanted to talk about the actual drive down.  Just in case you might want to try it yourself sometime!  Or, just so you can...

We left our lovely but cold camp spot at Joshua Tree and headed south to the border.  The wind had kicked up overnight and was gusting strongly for the entire day, making me glad that Jim was doing the driving.  We passed the Salton Sea, which we had seen from above the day before in JT.  We heard some people talking about it while at the overlook.  One fellow said that by 2034 it would be totally dried up, which was strange to think about as it is so large.  We were excited to get into Mexico today, so chose not to stop here, but maybe on the way back up?  After all, if its going to disappear, we should really have a closeup look!  After a quick pit stop for an iced coffee and pick up a couple of things, we headed to the border at Mexicali II.  As you might surmise, there are two crossings at the city of Mexicali and we had debated about which to use, reading posts by others on our way south.  It seemed, from what others had said, that M II would be the easier crossing, so we screwed up our courage and headed there.  Now, I have to say, we thought our crossing at the US border went pretty smoothly and we were kind of surprised that they didn’t want us to pull over so they could look through our vey packed van for contraband, but no, they just said have a good trip and waved us through.  So, coming to the Mexican border we thought for sure there would be questions about where we were headed, what we were bringing and the rest.  I had practiced the phrase “vamos a La Paz” (we are going to La Paz) over and over so that we would be confident in replying to the question as to our destination.  So, passports at the ready, we approached the border. And were waved though.  Like they didn’t even look at our passports.  We didn’t even stop the van.  They just waved and we went through. “...

La Paz Part II The Long Way Down When we left La Paz last year, the only thing that made it seem even remotely ok was the knowledge that we would be returning for another winter.  Only this time, we would be driving down – all the way from our home on Vancouver Island!  A long drive, for sure, but we wanted to be able to explore the Baja at our leisure, stopping to appreciate the many beaches and sights there are along the way.  So, in late October, the time was right, and we left, just as the “atmospheric rivers” were beginning to arrive – good timing us! Our intention was to camp in the van all the way down, but these plans were quickly squashed by the Pacific Northwest rain and cold.  So, we compromised.  Our first stop was in a small town south of Tacoma, Washington.  We arrived quite early in the afternoon, which was a bit of a surprise.  The last time we made the trip to this same town last summer, we were on the road for 8 hours (that does include a 2-hour ferry ride from Vancouver Island to the Mainland).  The border was packed, so an hour was wasted there, and then there was the inevitable traffic jams, starting north of Everett and lasting until south of Tacoma.  It doesn’t seem to matter these days, when you head through this corridor – there is always traffic!  So, imagine our complete surprise when our border wait was all of 10 minutes (and they did not even question all the gear we had in and on top of our van) and then we just sailed through Everett, Seattle and Tacoma with minimal traffic – what the heck!  Well, there was rain and wind to contend with and there was plenty of that.  But traffic?  Nope!  It was almost as quiet as it was when we drove north at the beginning of Covid!  So, having arrived nice and early, we checked in at the Fairbridge Inn and Suites in Dupont, where we enjoyed a dry, warm...

What?  Good bye?  Already?  I haven't even written about all of the wonderful things about this city that have so captivated us!  With less than a week left in our stay here, I had so much more to say, but now the question is "do I stay indoors and write blog posts for you to read or do I enjoy our last days here to the fullest?".  I bet you can figure out the answer to that one, lol!  Yes, I do have much more to say, but I have plenty of pictures to remind me of the beauty here that I want to share with you and I figure there will be more than one rainy day back home on Vancouver Island when I will be happy to immerse myself in memories of this blissful time.  So, until then, I will leave you with a few of my favorite pics from our time here.   Previous Next

Our time here in La Paz is coming to a close and we keep asking ourselves "where did all the time go?".  It seems as if we just got here and got settled and now we have to leave.  What the heck?  And I am guessing you are asking me, "what the heck is with 'paresseaux'? I thought you two were in Mexico?"  Well, yes, we are, but this French word now has great meaning for us and will help to explain just where all of that time has gone indeed.   So, what is 'paresseaux'?  It is French for Sloth and can mean the actual animal or someone being super lazy.  We learned this from a new friend, Suzanne, who is from Quebec.  We came to know her at a luncheon, held weekly here in La Paz, for Canadians.  Since joining these lunches, we have gotten to know quite a few Canadians from many parts of the country and made some very good friends.  We were surprised at how quickly we became close to our fellow Canadians, but I guess, given the fact that we all shared a distinct lack of Spanish, its not surprising.  Back in my former life as a teacher, it was quite common for our new students from China to hang out together whenever they could.  It is comforting to be able to speak your home tongue when surrounded by another so foreign to you.  I now really get how my students must have felt. So, we came to know Suzanne and found we had a common interest in snorkeling.  She had a car and was by herself.  We knew of some good beaches and were willing to show them to her in exchange for a ride.  But of course, it went much further than that.  As we travelled to various beaches in search of the perfect spot to snorkel (which we found!) we had time to talk and get to know each other.  Suzanne is bilingual, which is fortunate as neither Jim nor I speak French in any way that would allow for conversation.  Suzanne...

As the world seems to be determined to descend into chaos, here's a thought.  We all need La Paz, which means peace.  We can have our differences of opinion, come from other countries or places, speak different languages, look different and dress differently.  But do we need war?  No.  Let's please remember, the words of John Lennon "All we are saying, is give peace a chance".

Yes, this is true.  Although I like to keep this blog light in tone, I don't want to be disingenuous and say that everything is wonderful all of the time.  When you are out travelling for a good length of time, things happen and you don't always have control over when these things occur.   Shortly after our arrival here in La Paz we found out that Jim's sister-in-law, Sherril, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.  We were so sad to hear this news and wondered if we should just cancel and come home.  Jim's brother, Don, insisted that we stay.  There was nothing we could do at home and there was no indication of timing.  So, we made the decision to stay and Jim kept in touch with his brother.  Over the course of the weeks, it seemed as if her doctors had things in hand and we thought that perhaps this would be a slow moving illness.  A few weeks back, we were feeling confident enough to extend our visit here until the end of March.  Just after that decision had been made, things went horribly wrong and in the space of just two weeks, Sherril was gone.  To say we are devasted is a total understatement.  We are so sad for Sherril's shortened life, for her family's loss and for the loss in our own lives.   We have spent this past week wandering around, feeling a bit lost - sleeping a lot and talking about how we feel.  As there will be no celebration of life until the summer, we have made the decision to stay until our return date, but our hearts are with our family up in Canada right now.  I will get back to posting interesting tidbits of our travels here, but didn't feel I could move forward without acknowledging this huge loss in our lives.   Life is a gift.  As our friend, Louis, who we met at the beginning of this journey said "your job now is to live".  We intend to do that, squeezing every bit of life out of this gift we...

"Wait, what?" I can hear you saying, "You ARE away!".  Well, yes, this is true, but you see, we are living here for the moment and so, we decided after a month and a half, we needed a little break from our every day life in La Paz.  "Ok" you are saying, "but what about the whale sharks!  I want to read about the whale sharks!"  Yes, we did, in fact, go swimming with them and it was glorious! However, the water was pretty murky and we understand that in February it should be a little clearer.  So, rather than doing two blog posts about swimming with these amazing creatures, we decided to hold off and go again, hoping to get some better pictures to share with you.  But, just so you know we really did go, here are a few pics from our first whale shark adventure. Previous Next So, now we can talk about our little getaway.  Not having a car does present a few problems down here in La Paz, if you want to go anywhere other than the part of town we are living in currently, near the malecon.  We very much enjoy our daily walks along the water, and have ventured out using the local version of Uber, called Didi, as well as the little Collectivos which go pretty much all over town. The local Playa Bus can take us to nearby beaches such as Balandra and Tecolote, but to reach some of the further away  places we wanted to try snorkeling at, we needed a car.  So, we rented a car for 5 days, intending to do a little more exploring of beaches and get ourselves to Todos Santos, a well known town in the Baja where many artists have their work on display.   On our first day out, we drove over the hills to the beach at Ensenada de Muertos, on the other side of the peninsula.  The drive took a little over an hour and we were there in the early afternoon.  Although we had intended on snorkeling, we found the tide...

What happens when you come to a place such as this, a paradise where so many come to vacation, but you come with a different purpose.  You come to live, not holiday.  How does that change what you do and how you experience the place you are in?  These are the questions we have asked ourselves and are looking to find answers to.  Not only here in beautiful La Paz, but in other places around the world.  But for today, we are here, so how is it going? Well, as you saw in our last post, the first week was spent in awe of the beauty surrounding us.  We walked to the Malecon every single day, just taking in the breathtaking views of the water from there.  And while we still do that, maybe not every single day, but several days a week, we have also begun to explore other parts of the area where we are staying.  We do that for both the fun of exploring and for practical reasons - where can we get groceries?  Where is a coffee shop we can call our own?  What restaurants do we want to frequent (hint, if you get away from the Malecon, the prices go way down!)?  So the last several weeks have been spent exploring and settling in.  First of all, we found that there is a little market, just a block from our digs, where we can purchase fresh fruit and veggies as well as meat and cheese.  I like going in and asking for "dos pechugas de pollo por fovor" (2 chicken breasts please) with a little more confidence that I first did.  And veg?  You just pick up the plastic bowl and fill it with your choices, then cheerfully hand it up to the lady who weighs it all and tells you the total.  Now here, I must admit, I still struggle.  It is one thing to learn some basic Spanish and another thing entirely to have a native speaker rattle off a bunch of numbers to you.  As soon as they start talking, I freeze...

Yes, we are indeed, on the road again.  Well before we were inundated with "atmospheric rivers" and cold weather, we were dreaming of travelling once again.  The actual impetus for this trip began with a football game.  My family has traditionally gone to the Apple Cup, a game between our beloved Washington Huskies and the cross state rivals, the Washington State Cougars.  Covid, of course, kept us away, but over the summer, we decided that this fall we would, once again, brave the rain and cold of Seattle to watch the game.  We all bought our tickets (kind of pricey, if you ask me!) and were eagerly looking forward to actually seeing each other in person after too many Zoom family visits.  However, the border was a problem for us, up here in Canada.  The land border remained closed and we wondered if it would open in time for us to go to the game.  Knowing that the Thanksgiving week is traditionally the busiest travel week of the year, we wondered about leaving it too late to buy tickets to fly down.  You see, even though the land border was closed, we could still fly into the States - go figure!  So, as we talked about possibly using our Alaska Air points to fly to Seattle, the idea then became, "if we are heading to Seattle in late November, why not continue south after the game?".  Why not indeed!  Once the idea was planted, it grew and grew.  We looked at places we had wanted to visit and thought about ways we could travel.  Did we want to take the bikes?  One idea that we have kicked around for several years was to just find a place we liked and plunk ourselves there for several months.  No car, no bikes, just us, living in a community and getting a feel for it.  We looked at the Baja in Mexico, remembering fondly a trip we had taken to San Jose del Cabo many years ago.  We loved the laid back atmosphere there, but the water was not accessible, due to the...