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Tuesday, March 16, 2004

 
Belated update, earliest entry first:

From 27th Jan 04

Good news!

Today, in the near record time of 11 days from starting process I got
my FM3= Mexican residence/work permit! So now I'm entitled to stay here
in La Paz and do my english teaching job at the Tech - which starts on
Saturday and runs through 'til end of March!

Woo-hoo!!!


From 4th Feb 04

...an interesting afternoon... I went up to Balandra again and hiked up
over the wee hills between the bays to get to the super deserted
beach... which was empty as usual although there were 3 yachts and 2
fishing boats moored in the bay... tchah... Weather bloody great calm
and warm and sunny so I went for a swim... and got stung to buggery by
bastard sea-flea things... especially all over my left arm... OW! So I
returned to wading in the shallows and had just finally got visual
sighting of these bloody things... there's two kinds one, "the Black
Pearl" is a small jellyfish with a floatation sack in a
Portugese-Man-O'War stylee, but must less deadly... basically it looks
like an inch long snotter with a black blood clot in it... Ewwww... the
other kind is a transparent to near invisble 5 inch long spindly 5
armed Hydra or Medusa... so now at least I know what's been stinging
me... shame I didn't go today instead, it was very windy and the waves
would've put paid to the bastards... anyhow I'm stood there, looking
down, contemplating as it were... when I catch a movement about 20feet
to my left... somnething BIG like 5 or 6 feet long BIG is zooming
through the water just under the surface, making it hump up like a
bloody torpedoe! This thing chomps at omething (a fish I reckon) does a
180degree somersault and zooms off back out into the bay... It all
happened so fast I didn't have time to shit meself... the beast
surfaced half a second later to draw snorty breath... It's a sea-lion!
Bloody hell! I know sea-lions only eat fish, but has anyone told the
sea lions this? I was also thinking that as fast as that beastie moved
orcas and sharks swim faster, 'cos they prey no seals and sea-lions...
Not that there's any sharks around and I think the orcas are on the
other, Pacific side of the peninsula... still...

So I opted for a half hours sunbathing on the dry sand of the beach...
I liken this encounter to the aquatic equivalent of going for a walk in
the park on a summer day wearing only shorts, falling in an unnoticed
patch of stinging nettles and then seeing a HUGE wolf take a rabbit
just 20 feet from you....

Still, can't say I was ever bored!


From 20th Feb 04

Well Carnival has really started in earnest down here in La Paz and
it's slated to go on all through the weekend and into next week... It's
kinda like a mini rock festival all along the sea front but with oompah
oompah circusy type music (mariachi) and cumbia (just the cheesiest
cheese EVER! but its ok when youre dancing with a beautiful girl)...
or maybe it's more like "It's a knockout" without the
games... but on the other hand they do have the
"put-the-canival-queen-on-a-car-bonnet-and-drive-around-town-honking-in
-a-traffic-jam-while-she-hangs-on-for-her-life" game or the "parade" as
it's known ;) this is due to happen 3 times so I'm looking forward to a
good laff unless I'm stuck behind one trying to get to work...

Meantime the weather has flipped for the hotter... I had to teach in
shorts today (that's short pants for you americans)... which always
takes away a little gravitas I think!


From 10th March 04

Well here I am sitting in Cafe callejon after a coffee with a couple of lasses... Paco is playing as per usual, though he has put the 10string armadillo to one side and resumed with his 5 string guitar (no really, he does have a mini guitar-type-thingy made out of an armadillo shell)...

Had a cruel dose of Montezuma's revenge last week, but recovered well enough to head up to Lopez Mateos on the huge lagoon of the Bahia Magdalena to see the grey whales. See the whales spend the summer up around Canada and Alaska feeding and then come on down here to sunny warm Baja California Sur Dec. thro' March to breed and coddle their babies through their first few months.

It was a damn long drive about 350miles round trip, and the first time I've hit Highway 1 (that runs north-south along the 1000miles of the peninsula) in 4 months.... Going flat out (road allowing) it still took 3 and half hours EACH way! My back wqas killing me afterwards! And there were the usual army checkpoints to pass thro' where they give your car a cursory search for dodgy stuff, not to mention keeping your eyes peeled for the highway patrol who'd just love to fine your arse for going 85mph along a perfectly straight, empty, open desert highway for the piffling reason that the speed limit is a poxy 55mph... insane when you consider the distances you need to cover between inhabited areas... Of course there are those surprise areas where you just have to crawl along, for instance at Santa Rita where the entire surface of the highway seems to have been scraped off by a flash flood and dumped like the skin of a burned rice pudding 20 yards downhill! And every time you go through even the tiniest fart of a village they build speed bumps ON the highway! Slow down or kiss your chassis goodbye! Which isn't as bad as it sounds 'cos this is where you find the highest concentration of free grazing horses, mules, donkeys, cattle, goats, chickens and coppers so slow=good anyway...

On the plus side I saw a real life road runner flash across the road! meep meep! just a few miles outside La Paz and I made it to Lopez Mateos in the afternoon with plenty of time to hire a panga (20odd foot fishing boat + 75bhp outboard) and get out on the water... the lagoon is protected from the open pacific by a barrier of yellow dunes and inside the water is almost mirror flat... the weather has flipped back to hot as buggery after the miserable days we'd had last week and it was wonderful to sit in the front of the boat and zoom out over the bay... I'd been told there were lots of whales around, but I was still surprised by how many I saw in an hour and a half... within ten minutes we saw our first adult surface and vent (y'know when they let out ther breath with a fountain of spray)... and we must have seen 15 or 16 in total including half a dozen pairs - each a huge mother with a calf (merely 15 foot or so in length)... you'd first catch sight of a pair surfacing to vent a ways off, then Nestor (the boat driver) would get within a few yards and drop the motor to a quiet idle...

Now 'cos most of them come up to take a couple of breaths before diving again - (especialy the calves who tended to vent more frequently than the adults) we got to see a lot of them very close up, much closer than when I saw them off Vancouver Isalnd (within 2 or 3 yards here)... first a mottled nose would break the surface and in smooth sucession: the nostrils on top of the head would come up and vent, followed by the hump of the dorsal fin and the ridges leading to the tail... they didn't tend to raise their tails out of the water like they did in the rough seas off Canada, I think they were just taking it really easy.... Once one pair swam underneath us and vented so close we got sprayed! fortunately they're not feeding here, so their breath didn't stink of rotten fish! We'd had fantastic luck and I was very happy with the dozen or pics I took, of which I hope a couple will turn out OK... then just as we were heading back to the jetties one of the young ones breached! coming clear up out of the water and eyeballing us! Fantastico!

That journey was "vale la pena" (worth the hassle)!

P.S. I have a new lizard in my flat... another gecko type but its the size of my hand and like to climb the walls.... :(