Day 148 La Paz, Baja, Mexico

The sun beat down on the van that morning and eventually my deeper part of my brain told me that I was sweating to death in a down sleeping bag, in a roasting van. I crawled out of my sleeping bag which gave me some respite for a few minutes and then I needed air so I opened the door a crack…. only to be assailed by the most disgusting smell! Either someone had taken a dump right outside the van or something was going on. It woke Sheena up and I hopped out of the van to find it sitting in a pool of sewage! Seems someone had dumped their toilet tanks next to us in the night, or had an accident emptying it right next to us. Gross! I moved the van to get away from the smell and only then did the campsite owner tell his workers building a house nearby to put some sand on the smell. Bleh! We chatted to a English couple that were on their way south through the Americas in a huge 4WD van who were about to try to go and get back into the States, despite them not handing in their visa waiver forms. Good luck to them on that! I was warned most harshly that if I didn’t hand in my form I wouldn’t ever get back in. Probably a good thing anyway… :p

We had been given directions for a place to eat breakfast and after showering the stink of sewage away we drove the few miles out of town to a … cowboy bar? There was a bucking bronco outside and the gringos that had recommended it said they had a Mexican food. Not really. It was built for American’s and it showed, but at least the toilets were clean and the coffee refills free. It was a long ride to La Paz, our next destination and we ate heartily and set off down the road once more. Sheena was having trouble sleeping it seemed, she got up at 4am to look for her earplugs. I told her just to punch me next time, or just tell me to turn over. Seems I was snoring a bit :p She tried to get to sleep but it was no good, the roads were just desert and cactus. Not so interesting any more but that was the view for the next 5 hours; I took the opportunity to listen to my Spanish course for a couple of hours, I was getting a bit lax…

The temperature rose up and up and wavered around 29 degrees in the afternoon but couldn’t quite make it to 30. It was getting too warm too soon and I felt the need for air conditioning for the first time since Florida, but it dropped again when we hit the coast by La Paz. We parked up and went to look for the “Super Tacos” place, which was sadly shut. We found somewhere else that served Manta Ray Tacos nearby and when we sat down learned it was the new Super Tacos, but on the street and probably paying no rent now. Cheap eats and great salad stuff to add to your taco. No cheese though, so veggies would be screwed as usual. How can a taco/quesidilla place not have cheese!?! We had a host lined up in La Paz and spent the afternoon in Exquisito Coffee surfing and waiting for him to get back into town. Mike finally mailed us with a meeting place and apparently drove past and missed us, although he did see Sheena reading outside. We drove out to his place and spent a confusing 15 minutes driving around trying to find a huge beer sign on the road whish was the turning we needed. We got there eventually and found he lived in a huge open house, with umpteen crazy semi-wild pets. It would be a good base for Sheena to attempt to find a ride on a boat heading over to the mainland and beyond. Myself, I was going to continue south to the water Pacific and some decent surf.



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