Finding La Paz

As Emese (and a few of you) likes to remind me, if our blog were any credible reflection of time and space, we are currently driving into La Paz, Baja California Sur right about now - a harrowing journey of five weeks across relatively very little space.

Closer to truth is that we are currently in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in the gorgeous state of Chiapas, 5,000 kilometers más o menos from La Paz - as the Crow drives - near the southern edge of Mexico. The intervening kilometros have landed us in: Topolobampo (By far the best Mexican town name to say repeatedly. Try it.), Mazatlan, San Blas, Tequila (a real Mexican town, and home of the other Crow - Jose Cuervo), Guadalajara, Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende (Can't throw a roca here and not hit an American, by the way.), Mexico City, Oaxaca, Puerto Escondido and Playa Zicatela, Puerto Arista, and, since Friday, San Cristóbal de las Casas.



La Paz was, you may want to know, a kick-up-your-feet town (see sandy toes), deeply true to its name. We spent a week there in the great company of our previously mentioned New York-based friends, Annah and McGregor, in our own rented Casa Nina a block from La Paz's beautiful malecon (long waterfront walkway) and mooring harbor. From our Nina roofdeck we could see beyond the harbor across the Bahia La Paz to a mountain-dominated horizon to the west. That combination and some help from the sun's reliable westward arc creates famous La Paz sunsets. Testament in the attached photos.



In addition to prolific consumption atop Casa Nina of Tecate cerveza, fresh lime margaritas, cheap sparkling white wine (not half bad) from up the Baja peninsula, totopos with homemade pico de gallo salsa, guacamole, and various grillables, we also had the distinct advantage of La Paz's reputed best (and 24-hour) taqueria, El Rancho Viejo, just a block away, and within blurry-eyed sight of our bacanal rooftop perch. Many a taco was consumed here. (By the way, margaritas, we hear from reliable Mexican sources, like the Cinco de Mayo holiday, is an American invention. Tequila - thoroughly Mexican.)



We did occasionally leave the Casa and El Rancho and venture about the southern peninsula to secluded, pristine beaches that have jumped straight out of Corona ads - Tecolote, La Ventana, Los Cerritos - to bask in the Baja sun, swim, eat ceviche, and tomar cervezas and margaritas (not necessarily in that order). Go see these beaches and La Paz sometime if you haven't. You can avoid Cabo San Lucas, a bit to the south, in my opinion and that of Lonely Planet, which I paraphrase: If you like having watered down tequila poured down your throat in loud, sweaty bars thronged with year-round spring breakers, this is your place.

I hate watered down tequila.



One quick background story leading to this part of the trip. Annah is Emese's dearest longtime American friend. Their sisterhood began at the tender age of 12 when Emese was sent - sans a word of English - to Connecticut to spend a year with extended family. Their bond struck quick and has lasted over 20 years of trans-Atlantic vacations, cross-cultural schooling, and co-conspired mischief that still today, in La Paz for example, locks them into convulsive fits of laughter. Annah's family is Emese's, Emese's Annah's.

Consequently, Emese's father, Dr. Jozsef Tóth, wanted to do something special in celebration of Annah and McGregor's recent (and excellent) North Carolina wedding. He asked our advice, and we did our best to help, deciding that the best gift would be to send the four of us somewhere fun. All agreed that this was a brilliant idea - even Dr. Tóth - and there, in La Paz, did we find ourselves together, drinking toasts to peace, health, matrimony, and Jozsef on the Casa Nina roofdeck. Egészségedre!



Saints are of course prevalent in post-Hispanic Mexican history and present-day Mexican culture. Many take the form of patron saints of life's key elements - communities, travelers' safety, lost keys, etc. Several weeks ago, you'll perhaps recall, we found our very own saint of grounded crows and stranded travelers in San Javier. A bit drunk on my own self-accredited sainthood bestowing authority (and a Tecate or two), I am hereby canonizing Emese the patron saint of your valuable time. She has implored me to shorten the blog entries and to be more crisp. I will attempt this, for when implored to do something by a saint/editor/wife/travel companion, one complies.

More (or less) and crispier verbage to come!

May the saints be with you always - and with us as the Crow flies onward, southward.