La Paz! The last of the Baja!

We began our day as early as possible while still getting a good sleep.  The day before it was really windy and awful to ride in and we hoped that by morning the wind would have died down but of course it did not.  The ride was hilly and slow. We stopped at a little store, got some pop and pastries then kept going.  A little while later Rigel stopped for a break and saw a small backpack on the side of the road. Picked it up, examined it, looked ok, and now its my new handlebar bag! I have been quite sad that I didn't have one and was just using a crappy mesh bag so this was a big upgrade.  Turns out its for a small child but you know..whatever.

Once we were past most of the hills and could finally see the ocean..Rigel noticed my front tire was a little low on air.  I checked it out and it was right flat. My First Flat! WOW! Deciding it was only another 20km to La Paz we pumped it up and kept going. After only 8km it went flat again and we were just passing through the military checkpoint so we stopped and changed the tube.  I used a new tube instead of patching the old one only because I've been carrying 3 extra tubes. I guess I underestimated how good my tires really are.

We had hoped to be in La Paz early but with the wind and flat tire this were not looking great.  Finally we got to the outskirts but still had another 10km or so to the centre.  We stopped at Wal-Mart (the first since Ensenada) to stock up on much needed supplies and I spent some time in blood sugar shock from not eating quick enough and only eating cookies till we got to town.  That and my stomach being upset from something else I probably ate, we spend a great deal of time in Wal-Mart. After I ate some good food and my stomach settled down we started out on the hunt to find cheap hotels.  The sun had set so it was much more difficult to find anything while avoiding all the bumps and holes in the road.  After checking probably 10 different hotels, all ranging from the springy bed type to comes with everything including breakfast, pool and hottub, we finally found the right one. We were told there was a cheap hotel down the street from the bed and breakfast we checked out but the street was closed to cars as there was a fair going on.  We thought yeah lets try and manouver our loaded bikes through a giant crowd..thats easy enough.  We didn't find the cheap hotel but we found Hotel Yaneka. The owner barely spoke english but was willing to negotiate his price.  It was getting quite late and we were super hungry so we settled on 380 pesos.  A little more than we would normally pay but it has been well worth it.  The whole place is filled with knick knacks. Just filled! But with organization. Which is important because you really wouldn't be able to move otherwise. You walk through the foyer and the rooms are in the back with a central coutyard.  This place has everything and anything and at night you don't get to see the breadth of everything because the lighting is quite dim, such as the preserved monkey sitting in a vintage shell of a truck wearing a hat. There is not much of a roof to the courtyard so many of the metal pieces are rusty but that just adds to the character.  And then each room had something different going on..different paintings on the wall..different furniture...different architecture.. you could spend weeks wandering around and not see everything. Best hotel we've stayed in ever.

Reminds me of Jack. 

Upon entering the hotel there is a sign explaining what is included. Amongst the normal hot showers and wifi there is laundry service, continental breakfast and of course two shots of tequila...each. I've had shop keepers offer one shot of tequila to get you interested in their stuff but TWO shots each. Jeepers. So he brought them out to us and we took them. After a long hard day maybe thats just what we needed. Tomorrow, we thought, we will figure out how to get to the mainland.

the view from our room

Found a video about the hotel on youtube as well, though it is from 2008:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qh7STb_TUA