Emerald Star

Another town-that means shopping, walking around, trying out the local cuisine.

Shopping isn’t as glamorous as it sounds. It’s just trying to find groceries, hardware, boat parts, drug store stuff, etc. When you go weeks without seeing a single store there’s lots of shopping to catch up on. And it could be weeks before seeing more stores. Stores are different here. For example, for four different boat parts you might need to go to six stores. Even groceries have to be bought at several stores or markets. But it is fun, interesting, challenging, etc. Then everything has to be carried back to the boat-usually by walking. For big “shops” the best way to get it all back to the boat is via a taxi.

La Paz has a lot of cruisers so there are plenty of people that know how to get around-“take this bus, then that bus, then get a taxi back” kind of thing. They know all of the restaurants within walking distance. So we’ve been to several of the less expensive places to eat.

Walking in La Paz is interesting. It’s a nice town and very clean. There’s a nice waterfront and there are several really interesting sculptures around town. The sidewalks are a bit precarious in some neighborhoods. But as long as it’s daylight it’s generally not a problem-just pay attention. The architecture is pretty interesting also. There are some very cool, old buildings, especially in the residential areas. Not too many tourists come here so there aren’t a lot of people trying to sell stuff on the street.

While we were here there was the annual Subasta (auction) run by Club Cruceros (a cruiser organization located at Marina de La Paz). It raises money for the local orphanage. Diane made mint chip chocolate brownies for the bake sale and volunteered with set up. We also bought several items, both new and used. It was fun. Apparently it’s a big event in town. Lot’s of the locals and just about all of the cruisers show up. They raise a bunch of money for the orphanage. Also, we heard that the local dog rescue organization that had a booth placed 7 dogs during the day, so we were happy about that too!

We’ve done laundry, received mail (THANKS JOE!!) and the grocery trip that needs a taxi will be Tuesday. Then we’ll probably lead towards Mazatlan, slowly. We hear it is a bit warmer there. Here in La Paz sometimes it’s cold enough to require a sweatshirt, ugh! We’ve come this far, might as well go somewhere a bit warmer for December and January. So we may go south along the mainland for a few weeks.

Sunset in La Paz......

It’s a Small World - One of the really fun things about cruising is that it makes one realize that it’s a very small world. Every now and then we just run into someone that we haven’t seen in a while. At Los Meurtos we ran into Paul and Kathy who we know from OYC and took a ham class with two years ago. In La Paz we ran into old dock neighbors from Santa Cruz, Sheila and Audrey, who we haven’t seen in at least a couple of years. Then we are always running into people we’ve met since leaving the San Francisco area. It’s this mobile community, very cool.