hurricane John

Well the bus floated pretty good but the waves made Darby seasick. It
wasn't that bad, I slept thru most of it and we walked around La Paz
the next day with the 2 Swiss guys we met at our hotel, lots of trees
and power lines down, signs blown off the fronts of buildings and
flooded streets, palms with their tops gone and that sort of thing but
no major flooding or damage to structures. However... The ferry we
wanted to take was staying in port until the last of the danger had
passed, we had originaly meant to catch it on Fri but did not leave til
monday afternoon. Trapped in a funny hotel with Felix the excentric
owner and our new Swiss friends. The hotel was cinder block and 4
blocks from the beach which had a breakwater around it, the bus was
parked under cover so we felt safe enuf... Just hung out and played
gin rummy with the Swiss... Power went out Friday night but was back up
by miday saturday... Felix the owner was a funny little guy, a retired
math teacher who had owned the Hotel Tijuana for 25 years, very
religious with hennaed hair and a amazingly slow way of talking, he
would hem and haw and start and stop and then say a few words. He asked
us out for chinese food so the day after the hurricane, saturday
evening we all piled into Marco and Phillip the Swiss guys car, a
thrasher SUV they had picked up from friends in Portland Oregon,
covered with anti Bush bumper stickers and drove downtown to look for a
chinese resturant that was open... Not much luck, Everybody was closed
or taking the day off, the resturant felix wanted was full of Chinese
guys playing mah jong but no food was being served, undaunted we kept
driving around La Paz, the wrong way on one way streets, dodging
flooded intersections and debris in the road, finally found a nice
chinese resturant, the only place in town open! Packed with all the
other people that had been looking for somewhere open too. Good food,
good company, a nice adventure... The next day Felix offered to make us
carne asada in the hotel yard so a trip to the store with Felix and 4
kilos of meat later we were making a Mexican barbeque and drinking beer
in the yard... At 8AM Monday Marco and Phillip and D and I caravaned
down to the ferry terminal, waited an hour for it to open and finally
bought tickets, with 4 hours to wait till the the time when the ferry
might leave we... played gin rummy! The very large ferrys main task is
bringing all the trucks over from the mainland to feed and provision
the Baja. Things are substaintilly more expensive in Baja, like Hawaii
every thing comes over by boat. Once the ferry arrived there was more
card playing as the full load of storm delayed trucks was off loaded,
then it was our turn, up the super steep loading ramp and into the
strong fishy smell, to a huge cavernous hold where everyone joined into
a mad dance of... turning around and backing into our space! trucks,
tourists and general bedlam as we all spun around to park. Once aboard
it was modern and well kept, a lounge area with movies, a bar, large
outdoor spaces where we watched dolphins arcing thru the sea and a
table in the lounge to play gin rummy! It was dark when we got to
Topolobampo on the mainland, we drove 20 kilometers into the next town
and found a hotel with the Swiss guys, too tired to play cards we got
up early Tuesday and said our goodbyes to Marco and Phillip, they went
down the coast to surf and we headed inland to Durango and the cooler
climate of north central Mexico.

Driving up was an adventure in itself, El espinoza de diablo, the
devils backbone, a spectacularly scenic but white knuckled drive up
6700 feet into the mountains, lots of those poigniant crosses by the
side of the road that indicate the demise of a driver... We came upon a
white modern ford pick up that had failed to negotiate a turn and hung
like a toy at the edge of the abyss, all four wheels off the pavement,
at a 45 degree angle down, with few bushs stopping it from a thousand
foot fall. The two men who had come so close in shock by the side of
the road... Mexico is a two hands on the wheel sort of country. Once we
got to the high country it was beautiful, it reminded us both of
central Oregon, wooden houses, pines and lots of rock escarpments.
Turns out Durango has been the site of hundreds of movies, mostly
westerns.
Durango itself is a combination cow town and university town, old for
the new world, the main church was built in 1685 and there is alot of
baroque arcithecture and wrought iron. Parks and tree lined plazas with
fountains, the cooler weather... Darby and I love it! We are going to
Zacatecas tomorow and will probably stay there at least a week, we are
tired of racing around and glad to be in old Mexico...