Baja or Bust: the Plastow's Excellent Family Adventure

We are back in Canada at last! And what a trip it has been - both figuratively and literally!

Since San Diego, we spent two days in Las Vegas. We stayed at the Excalibur on the strip. Emma really liked the idea of staying in the "castle" as she called it. We overindulged at the buffets and Emma and I went to a show - Mamma Mia. A real thrill for me, and I think Emma enjoyed it too. Supposedly, you had to be 5 years and older to go, so we told Emma she had to pretend to be five if anyone asked her age. No one did of course, but she just had to pipe up to the lady sitting next to us that she was 5, which sparked a whole conversation about being 5 (she kept up the ruse with no problem). Then at the end of the show, she asked me if it was OK if she was 3 again because the show was over. She sure has kept us laughing (when we were not tearing our hair out).

So after two days of buffets we were on the road again. The original plan was to go as far as Salt Lake City, but we pushed on and went as far as Pocatillo, Idaho. Then we got up this morning and drove and drove and drove until we arrived after 12 hours in Calgary. Very glad to be almost home! And hardly any problems at the border, though apparently Brian and I went through two countries with invalid passports because we forgot to sign them! Par for the course...

We should be back in Red Deer with what is left of our tans on Sunday. We cannot wait to share in person (aka bore you tears) all about our trip, and just wait till we get all our rolls of film developed (slide show anyone?)

Sadly the Baja portion of our trip has ended.  We had such a great time in La Paz that we didn't really want to leave. 

Driving back up the Baja hiway was very interesting.  Kristine managed to smuggle some fruit past the fruit inspectors, our car got searched 4 times by the military and I got pulled over for speeding by the Federales!  Once the policeman found out I was from Canada he simply shook my hand let me go without a ticket.  As you can imagine the next hour was dominated by questions from Emma about why the police stopped me? Are policeman nice? Will I go to Jail etc.

The Desert was very interesting on the way back as many of the cactus and trees were in bloom.  Unfortunately the temperature dropped about half way up the peninsula.  Instead of the 30plus degrees we had gotten used to, it was 18-19 degrees.  When we got St Quintin we actually had to put on our jackets.

The border crossing was pretty easy and took us only 40 minutes at San Ysidro south of San Diego.  I'm glad we didn't have to spend any more time than that in Tiajuana because it kind of gaves us the creeps.  Southern Baja is much nicer than the north.

We were thinking of going to a Padres game here in San Diego but it's raining. So tomorrow we're off to Vegas where we'll spend a couple of nights.  Hopefully we can recharge our tans a bit before heading north.  We should be home early next week.

Everyday when we see Eberhard, the man who runs Haceinda del Sol, he always says "Another shitty day in paradise" and so we will be spending one more day in La Paz, due to weather. Eberhard has us convinced (he printed off the sattelite weather map)  it's rainy up north where we were to go today, so we're staying one more day and leaving tomorrow (Saturday). We weren't really looking forward to leaving as we've had such a good time here, but last night after coming home from supper, we encountered a flying cockroach AND a scorpion in our hacienda, so it is time to go (the bugs are the one bad thing about being here). We're also excited to get home as we have a new niece to visit - Sophia Jaclyn Black!! Congratulations Michelle and Matthew!!

So here are a couple more photos of our time here and hopefully our next posting will be from the road.

After getting up at 5am to go fishing (sort of sounds like ice fishing) I arrived at the Beautiful Bay of Dreams (aka Bay of the Dead) at 6:30 to meet my fishing captain, Manuel.

Our first order of business was to go get bait so we were of to La Isla Tiburon (Shark Island) to get some.  When we got to the Island Manuel gave me control of the panga (boat) and he grabbed his net and started hauling in a bunch of sardines.  Once he was satisified we had enough bait he said we can start looking for fish.  Its worth mentionning that Manuel spoke very little English so between the two of us it we had very interesting conversations.

I was hoping to catch some Durado which is a big game fish down here.  Apparently they were´nt biting but I did have a very good day.  I caught a bunch of Yellow Snapper, a Trigger Fish, a couple of Barricuda type fish that scared the heck out of me and quite a few fish called Sierras (Part of the Tuna family If guess) had they fought like hell.  It was a lot of fun.

Manuel also filleted all of the fish which I dearly appreciated.  I gave him a Grouper that he caught and a very generous tip for cleaning all of the fish.

The only bad thing about the trip was that I forgot my Sunscreen and I now have the worst burn of my life after a full day in a tank top on the water.  Ouch.  Kristine doesn't seem to have much sympathy for me.

Anyhow we are scheduled to leave La Paz tomorrow.  Our hosts have said we can stay of couple days extra which would be nice.  We don´t really want to leave but we all kind of want to start heading for home.

That´s it for now.

 

B

 

 

We can hardly believe it but our time in La Paz (and soon Baja) is almost done. this week is very quiet without kath, we were very glad she came.

We dropped Kath off at the airport on Sunday and took a slight detour through Cabo San Lucas. Very american - there were gringos everywhere and very high priced hotels and resorts (never having been to puerto vallarta like Brian, it was a shock to me). And so many golf courses - in the middle of the desert! La Paz is so much nicer and we're so glad we're staying here. we did a bit of celebrity watching at the airport, but didn't see anyone. when B picked Kath up he's saw Tim Allen.

Brian is all set to catch the big fish this week. We drove out to the Bay of Dreams ( South of La Paz) yesterday to set it up and it looks like a great place to go fishing from. It sounds like he'll be fishing for Dorado (a good fighting fish that tastes like chicken), Red Snapper and such.