Pension California y Isla Espiritu Santo

If you ever find yourself in La Paz, Mexico, make a beeline for the Pension California. Nestled right on the cusp of downtown and industria, it was our home for 3 days. Such was the beauty of the delapidated walls and concrete beds that we didn´t mind the lack of hot water (agua caliente for those interested in Spanish). It  also seemed to be conducive to amorous couplings. On day 1 we heard a few groans coming from the next room, and on the following night from 2am until 4am, and then again from 6am until 8am we were kept up by not only a woman singing (poorly) to Creedance Clearwater Revival, but by similar groans and amorous noises as to the day before. When we knocked on their door for some silencio we were quickly joined by another guy at the doorway from a different room. This made us fairly confident that he was a pimp and that we had booked ourselves into a brothel. Our fears were all but confirmed when the next morning, a Sunday, an elderly lady in a policeman´s outfit visited the same room, for approximately 15 minutes. One can only imagine what kind of shake down she was providing. As I said earlier, the Pension California was a real winner.

I told you the Mexican women were large. This is Talia, our chef for the boat trip and, boy, did she get excited about ceviche.

You may wonder why we didn´t move from this sewer-pit on day 2. Oddly enough, the Baja California (with the exception of Cabo San Lucas in the south) is really not very well geared up for tourism. None of the hostels or backpackers subscribe to hostelbookers or hostelworld, which were our go-to sites for bookings in South America, and none of the places advertise at bus stations. It is very odd. We spent a good hour trying to find anywhere to stay in La Paz when we arrived, and now almost regret finding anything at all.

That´s a blue whale in the distance, I promise.

For all the pension´s shortcomings, La Paz was a really cool town with a vibrant waterfront area, a large bay and friendly people. It is also the gateway to Isla Espiritu Santo, a UNESCO world heritage site and a beautiful island just off the coast. For those geographically-oriented people out there, here is a map of where it is.We spent an entire day visiting the island, and in the process had some amazing dolphin viewings (swimming with the boat and jumping right out of the water next to us), we saw a blue whale (not a small animal), mantarays jumping out of the water and even got to snorkel with sea-lions, though Marcelle, like Buster Bluth, fears a loose seal and preferred to stay on the boat. The day really was a highlight of the trip so far. And Talia did make a mean ceviche.

This was right next to our boat (you can actually see the edge of the boat in the foreground).

Swimming with seals.