Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

It was tough to leave Ajijic – we had a great apartment, kids in a good school, a lot of free time and met some nice people to hang out with.  But our next stop was the Baja peninsula and Matthias and I were both looking forward to it very much.  We had heard great things from a lot of different travelers and couldn’t wait to get there.  What a huge disappointment we had awaiting us.

First we had a long drive to Mazatlan.  Mazatlan has the reputation of being another Mexican resort town.  It is true that there is a section of Mazatlan full of tourists and big resorts, but the old part of town is really quite nice and the view from the waterfront is spectacular.  The hardest part of being in Mazatlan was the heat and humidity.  The temperature was in the low 90’s, and the “feels like” temperature was just under 100, but after being in the cool mountains with a great climate, it took me a couple of days to adjust.  We signed up for the car ferry from Mazatlan to La Paz (which is on the southern end of the Baja, about 1500 km from Tijuana).  The ride was 19 hours, and we spent the night in a cabin with 4 beds.  The ferry was brutally expensive (around $400) but I was kind of excited when we first boarded.  There was a lot to explore, and it kind of had a Love Boat feeling with the narrow hallways, dining area, lounge and cabin areas.  After just a bit of exploring we realized that this boat had seen better days (big on the Boat, low on Love) and there wasn’t really anything to do except start out into the Sea of Cortez.  Never the less, we did have a good time and between nap time, dinner, breakfast and movie hour, we found enough stuff to do to keep ourselves busy. 

 

 

We got to La Paz in the morning and everything seemed good.  We’d heard good things about a small town called Todos Santos, so we decided to head out that way.  We thought we’d try a hotel room since it was quite hot, but all the hotels we found were really expensive.  We decided to check out a few camping spots, but the only one in that area was bankrupt and closed down.  Then we noticed we had a flat tire.  At that point Matthias changed the tire and we headed back to La Paz, a friend had given us the names of some good cheap hotel rooms.  When we got back to La Paz the temperature was 42 C, (107 F). 

After 2 nights in La Paz we headed towards Loreto.  At least it was cool enough to camp there, but the beach and town were very disappointing.  Next was Bahia Concepcion, which is supposed to be one of the highlights of the entire Baja.  When we pulled in around 11:00 AM, it was already 102 degrees, and the hottest part of the day had yet to come.  So on we went to the Pacific side, where it was nice and chilly – much better camping weather.  This town was a prime whale watching area, but of course that is only in the right months.  No whales in July.  We continued north, but everything we saw was just not interesting to us or too hot to camp.  We ended up just heading up the peninsula in 3 days. 

I can honestly say that this is the biggest disappointment of our entire trip and an unfortunate end to our time in Mexico.  We’d heard great stories of perfect beaches, great camping spots, wonderful snorkeling.  There were a few sections of the 1000 mile drive that were interesting, but generally it was just mile after mile of dry fields of millions of cardon cacti.  On the other hand we have seen so much amazing stuff in the last 3 years that it really would have been hard to top what we have seen so far.  Maybe it would have been a better idea to start off in Baja when the weather was milder and return on a different route.  In any event, we have made it through the Baja and t is a good thing that we are close to the border now because after all those cacti I’ve got a real hankering for some Taco Time. 

    

Choluteca is a city in Honduras.  Now you know at least one city in Honduras.  How many of you know what the capitol of Honduras is?  I’ll give you even more points if you know how to pronounce it correctly, because it is a mouthful.  Tegucigalpa.  We never made it to the capitol, but the two days we have spent here in Choluteca just leave me wanting more of Honduras. 

When we crossed into Honduras we were really expecting the worse, but we have only been pleasantly surprised since we’ve been here.  Choluteca has such a lively center.  And the church and old town are beautiful and honestly charming.  Once the sun sets I’d advise staying close to your hotel room, but that is the case in a lot of Central American cities.  With little kids we don’t venture far from “home” at night anyway, so it isn’t any sort of imposition at all for us. 

We’ve turned heads like never before here.  Women of all ages have been real suckers for our two blue-eyed boys in all of Latin America, but we’re drawing attention to even the men.  Yesterday when we were walking through town I remember we passed a billiard hall where about 10 men were sitting on a window ledge.  As we walked by at least 8 of them turned around to stare at us.  But it doesn’t stop there.  William and Julian showed interest in a woman selling sweet tamales on the street.  We were planning on eating dinner later so we told them we wouldn’t buy any right then.  But the woman insisted on giving them each a tamale.  Matthias asked how much we should pay, but they refused.  They were gifts for our beautiful boys. 

Choluteca is also very hot.  During the hottest part of the day the temperature was around 103º F (40º C).  This kind of heat sends Seattleites into a frenzied tailspin.  But here, life seems to have the requisite pace to deal with that kind of heat on a regular basis.  Everything moves slowly, and even the street vendors don’t bother you with aggressive sales techniques.  It is just too dang hot to exert that much energy.

We also found a nice Comedor (eatery) where we had most of our meals.  The menu isn’t complicated – there is only one thing on it each day.  They only thing you specify is how many plates you want.  Most of the meals were traditional for this area: beans, eggs, tortillas, meat for dinner and fried plantains for breakfast.  They were substantial, filling, tasty meals, and each plate only cost around 2 dollars.   

We didn’t do much other than eat, sleep, check out the city and spend time at the playground.  But the slow-placed, friendly atmosphere pleased us so well we spent an extra night there.  Choluteca doesn’t have any “sights.”  Other than the surrounding beautiful countryside there wasn’t much of interests to tourists, other than regular Honduran life.  We most likely won’t be traveling back to Honduras on the rest of our trip, and we think that is kind of unfortunate.  If this is just a sampling of what a lot of Honduras is like, I think this country is worth visiting and I’m sorry we won’t get to see more of it.

 

After leaving Alajuela we spent two more nights at Playa Hermosa, where we had already been 3 other times.  This has been one of our favorite spots on our entire trip and it seemed like ... [Continue reading this entry]

We’ve put some recent pictures up on our flickr site. Click here to go straight to the site. Or you can use the URL http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebays/

We uploaded some pictures of Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

We arrived in Granada with our friend Cy and spent two nights there. Granada is probably the most beautiful town in Nicaragua. It is an old colonial town with buildings painted in bright colors. There was a lively market and ... [Continue reading this entry]

Sorry I can’t write a whole lot, but our friend Cy and I just returned from climbing the Conception volcano on Ometepe island in Nicaragua. I won’t be able to move for the ... [Continue reading this entry]