Wednesday, May 10, 2000

After a wonderful breakfast at Tres Leches, we caught a bus to La Paz. Arrived on the outskirts of town, about 4km away, not where we expected. It seems all Mexican cities are moving their bus terminals to the outskirts. We caught a collectivo taxi to mercado central for 3 pesos each.

We hiked to the SEMATUR office from the mercado to get our ferry tickets for the next night’s departure. This being our honeymoon, we decided to splurge for Especial Clase, 720 pesos each. Hiked back three blocks to the conveniently-located Hotel la Purisima, 220 pesos. Our room has a lovely 4-tone yellow tile bath accented by 2-tone greens, with 1-inch grout joints. The a/c didn’t work, but it wasn’t necessary. Kind of disappointing, but far better than the hotel we stayed at in London last fall!

We dined at El Callejon, a nice outdoor restaurant on a pedestrian street near the malecon. A lady passing by decided that a bench on the sidewalk facing the outdoor seating would be the ideal place to breast-feed her baby. Jana tends to disagree. We would later discover that most breast-feeding in Mexico is done in public, in front of as many people as possible.

We walked down the malecon after dinner and watched the teenagers in heat practicing their seduction rituals on the beach. This is another act that Mexicans feel they must do in public. We soon adopted the term "belly-rubbers" for these raging-hormone teens, because if the guy is having any luck at all, he’ll have the girl laid out on a park bench rubbing her belly (or she’ll be rubbing his). Got some good pics of them. I built a sand mountain and Jana waded.

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The waterfront at La Paz

We strolled through the Plaza de Constitution. It is very pretty at night and is filled with little Mexi-kids. We like La Paz.

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Tom showing off on the playground on the playa

Got a couple of beers and a 70-peso bottle of mescal in a local grocery/department store. We went to the room and watched Mexican politicos and pundits on TV. The presidential elections are coming up in Mexico in a month, so the networks were full of that stuff. I kind of liked the guy Vincente Fox, though I admit this is a judgment on appearance only, since they were of course speaking Spanish. They sounded about like American politicians, except they took turns speaking. I could tell they were all full of crap just the same.

Continue to day 3.

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