Vaya con dios

Have to start  this one off with some sad news. Every time I leave the country a pet dies. We had some warning, but yesterday Tim's dog Roscoe went to the heaven store. Roscoe was a fine dog mostly. He taught me many things, some of which include: the absorbent properties of inorganic carpeting; the wide variation in intelligence levels among yellow labs; and that chocolate won't kill a dog even in quantities that might kill a human. Thank you for everything Roscoe. When you see my cat Mario, please tell him we are sorry for ever getting Luigi and Penny. When you see Luigi, tell him we are sorry for always letting Mario eat all of your food.

LA PAZ 4LYFE

We spent five more nights in La Paz after the last time I blogged. That was not the plan. A combination of immigration needs and ferry hangups kept us at bay until Tuesday night, but we had some fun. Joe and Kali successfully fixed her gas dump problem (with the motorcycle) Thursday night. It was good practice... On Friday we became legal. It was pretty easy really. Thanks, Mexico. I hear we're not quite as easy to work with up north. On Saturday we finally got some beach time and had a chance to take out the snorkel gear we brought expecting to be snorkeling every day... but not before Joe and Kali successfully fixed her second gas dump problem of the week. Much faster this time. We didn't see shit, but it was great to be face down in warm water for a while. I got sunburned of course, but only an inexplicable patch on the top of one foot. Whatever. Fuck you.

On Sunday Tim touched another ocean behemoth, but this time he wasn't supposed to. We did manage to go snorkeling with whale sharks. Well, one whale shark. But one was enough. They're way more beautiful than gray whales and being under water with one is wild. They cruise along at an easy enough snorkeling pace but you have to take a few flippers to the face if you want to beat out the other snorkelers for the best position.

The only other person on our boat was Flo, a French student in La Paz for an international business internship. He was a pretty classically slender, cigarette-smoking Frank. We went to his apartment afterward to drink some beers and use his laptop. Tim taught him about sneaker culture and we all taught him that "see you later tonight" from a Seattleite means "thanks for the Internet see you never!" Sorry about that. We'll work on it... later tonight...

Sunday was equally memorable. On the whale shark boat we hugged one side of El Mogote, a peninsula sticking out into the Bay of La Paz. Except for the luxury condominiums at the tip, the peninsula is a long sliver of empty beach. The next day we finally acquired some ferry tickets and got set to head out the following night. In the meantime though, we were determined to find our way to El Mogote. After missing the turnoff and driving an absurd distance along an absurdly scenic waterfront highway, we turned around and missed the turnoff again. The correct road was long and unpaved. It looks glamorous in photos but was mostly miserable on a large, street-oriented motorcycle. My hands were asleep by the time we pulled off but it was well worth the discomfort. With a view of La Paz just far enough away and not a soul on the sand in either direction, we were entirely alone. Stones were thrown, shorts were shed, and everyone voted unanimously in favor of the beach's superiority. We were sad to have spent so much time in La Paz and only found that beach at the end of our stay, but every day there was important for one reason or another.

On Tuesday we attempted to clean up a week's worth of mess from our Chinese hotel room. We did alright, but I was happy they didn't check the room before returning our deposit. La Paz added to the surprising number of Seattle connections we discovered in Baja. One of the few channels on the hotel TV  showed Evening Magazine and the guy who checked our paperwork at the ferry terminal has an uncle who lives on Alki Beach. As we pulled up to the dock the modern, sleek ferry depicted on the company's website was disembarking. The ferry left for us was more tanker than yacht. It was the biggest boat I have ever been on and maybe 10% of the space was accessible by passengers. We did have our own cabin for the overnight ride, though, and there was outdoor space and beer, both of which we consumed in stereotypically American portions. When we reached the mainland we hit the ground running, straight to...

TEQUILA!

For obvious reasons our night in Tequila was one of the most memorable and one of the most forgettable yet. The search for the hostel we researched was fruitless but serendipitous. A young street vendor recommended Hotel Loreto, where an infectiously smiley and possibly stoned middle aged man named Luis gave us two rooms and free shots of tequila from his brother's distillery, DonValente. We also agreed to buy a bottle of it for later for around $40, which we didn't feel so great about. Luis hadn't earned our trust yet and at a touristy looking tequila shop around the corner typical Jose Cuervo, Herradura, and Sauza products were selling for less than $10. We bought a bottle of Jose Cuervo Tradicional for like $12 just to be able to try a couple different types, but feeling too spends already we just took it back to the hotel. Luis was waiting for us, and fully intended to give us our money's worth. The one bottle we bought ended up including three more. We all ended up in Luis' room, which was straight out of Scarface. The bathtub, toilet, and bidet were separated from the living room by only one stair and the decor fed our suspicions that the pretty young men posing as employees may have been more harem than staff. The one other person Luis invited that night showed up late, brought only a toothbrush, and did not pass the half-your-age-plus-seven rule.

Luis told us that his brother's tequila was of such high quality that we would not be hungover the next day. And even after waking up to Kali's third gas dump, right in the hotel courtyard, we did feel mostly fine. It helped that Luis made us various hangover potions when we woke up, but everything went to shit when we attempted to find a distillery tour. The two blocks between the hotel and the adjacent Cuervo and Sauza compounds were easy. But the smell of tequila right outside the factories made everyone feel like they had just second harvested a stranger's vomit. We decided to skip the tour and move on.

FAMILIA

I'm blogging now from the neighborhood of Chula Vista, outside of the popular retirement town of Ajijic on Lake Chapala, Mexico's largest freshwater lake. Hosting us is the family of a couple Joe's mom Dana has known for 25 years. Belva and Enrique, the wife and husband, are painters who own a gallery in Ajijic and live in a long but cozy rambler above a golf course with whichever of their children happen to be around at the time (right now their gracious 19-year old son James) and a countless amount of pets. A few hours after stopping to eat two pounds of pork at the first carnitas spot of the trip, we were hungry for more meat. Joe's insatiable craving for steak and the thumbs up from James and his friends led us to Tango, an Argentinian steakhouse. It was ridicubomb. I dont really like steak, but I loved that dinner. Everyone but Joe has leftovers and we paid less than an inferior steakhouse would charge for one meal in the states. We felt pretty good about ourselves, but we all slept terribly. Nobody was feeling even 80% this morning when we ventured out to explore Lake Chapala. And to our disappointment, apparently nobody uses the lake for recreation... or anything at all really. We walked the length of a barren boardwalk today hoping to find a paddle-oriented activity but all we found were some cows and some underwhelming ice cream.

We are back at the house now, resting after lunch with the family. If this blog sounds tired, you now know why. From here the plan has been to stay in the port town of Manzanillo in another free house before riding along the coast to Zihuatanejo. But the only things we've heard about that leg are that Manzanillo is big and ugly and the drive through the volatile state of Michoacan is beautiful but not entirely risk-free, so we have some decisions to make. Next time I blog, you'll know which one we make, but hopefully it will involve some coral reef. We are already nearing the turn-around point, which is making the trip feel short, but we have a lot planned for the return trip. Stay tuned. I'll try to write more frequently.

Con mucho amor,
The Dirty Riders


BERG'S EYE VIEW

-The dead dog count is holding steady, which is good.
-Ad slogan for a restaurant in La Paz called Just Burgers: "More than only hamburgers!"
-Robocop. Pretty good!
-We now all have bright "GAS" signs placed on our bikes/luggage to help with Kali's bike. We'll see if it works.
-Tim doesn't like tortillas. Uh oh...
-Mexican drivers are much more generous than American drivers. Except for the Mexican drivers who are much less generous.