La Paz means peace

December 15, 2018

Desert camp to La Paz

A colourful sky greeted us from the tents this morning.

Tom left us early in order to race the final 60 kilometres to La Paz, where he would enquire about the possibility of us getting on a TMC ferry on the 17th or 19th, or Baja Ferries on the 18th, and if none of those were possible he would jump on the one leaving today (the 15th).

The remaining five of us took a more leisurely approach to getting on the road and riding to La Paz, but thankfully the hectic traffic of the previous evening was mostly gone, and what was even better, a big shoulder soon appeared that continued pretty much all of the way to our destination. That meant we could ride along together chatting and playing '20 questions' which was a great way to end our time cycling down the Baja peninsular.

Spotted this tarantula also making its way towards La Paz.

I tried dropping hints to my companions as to why wearing grey isn't the safest idea, although I'm not sure it had any effect. Here you can see Dea being more visible, despite being ten times further away.

We had a descent and suddenly we were beside the seaside. We stopped at a small town close to La Paz and found a restaurant with wifi to try and find out if Tom had had any luck with the ferries. There was not yet any news from him, but the food was delicious.

As you can see, the cafe had wifi. We made a plan to stay at a hotel outside of the centre of La Paz, because it would be peaceful, and it had a pool.

The road was busy from there into La Paz, but it was at least two lanes in each direction. At one point we saw a bike shop and Dea and Ciaran went in to see if they had some bits that they needed. There was nowhere good to lean our bikes, so I said that they could lean their bikes against mine. Then I realised something amazing - that once there was a bike leaning on either side of my bike, the whole thing had become completely self-supporting. I stepped off my bike, over Dea's bike, and walked away, and the three bikes stood up by themselves. Ingenious!

If you travel with three people, you'll never need a kickstand, or a wall, ever again!

Our first stop in La Paz was at the Walmart. Not having seen a Walmart since the US, we were excited about getting some exciting things, like trail mix and vegetarian sausages. Alas, it was to be a big disappointment, for this Walmart had no such exciting things, only the regular Mexican foods available anywhere.

The boys playing a very exciting new game called Ninja. It's a very fun game involving taking it in turns to try and hit the other players' hands.

At Walmart Ciaran got in touch with Tom, who had not had much luck. The TMC office in town had told him bikes were okay, but out at the port they'd said no way. The Baja Ferries option for today was, like the 18th sailing, completely sold out, and so he'd have to stay in La Paz, like us, potentially until the 25th. He was in the town centre at a cheap hotel, and encouraging us to join him there. We went to check out the nearby hotel with a pool that we'd planned to stay at, but it turned out to be expensive and in the middle of nowhere with no atmosphere, so we followed Tom's advice, and rode into the town centre.

We got off the main drag and took small roads into central La Paz.

The hotel turned out to be very cramped and very noisy, with concrete beds and cockroaches on the walls, but it was at least cheap. After checking in and showering we all went out to a nearby bar for drinks, food, and games. There were a variety of games there to play, including Connect4 and Jenga, and so, as you can well imagine, I had a cracking evening! Then we wandered down to the malecon and soaked up the atmosphere for a while before heading back to the hotel to try, not very successfully, to sleep through all the noise of a nearby nightclub. La Paz, by the way, means peace.

Vincent and Sonia were staying at the same hotel as us. Here Sonia takes her turn in Jenga.

La Paz means peace for this sleepy fellow.

Christmas in Mexico, sponsored by Coca-cola!

Today's ride: 69 km (43 miles)
Total: 1,469 km (912 miles)

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