The Isabel

Photos

old pictures now, from a romantic past.

The Burger Joint

You've gotta understand La Paz, it's sort of ramshackle planning set against the most delightful of harbours and everyone everywhere is eating or laughing or better still kissing a lover. After too much pro-cras...tination we went to the beach. Or maybe beaches.

The bus lifted up out of the harbour, wrapping around desert curves shadowed by 20 foot tall cactus with falcons perched on top of them. Then blue, deep blue harbours dotted with rusting - still in use - fishing boats. The nets lazing in still lagoons and masts casting their shape to the sandy bottom.

We got dropped at the end of the road and there it was.
















We drank beer on the beach for one dollar. We slept, then I swam in the cooling currents of Cortez and watched the shape and colour of the desert change with the rolling of the sun. After the ugliness of Tijuana I felt a better person for being on the beach, for not participating in maliciousness.
















That night we found The Burger Joint which sat facing the harbour, Mexican hamburgers for $4 and delivered by this dude, yeah this Mexican dude. He got to know us, sat talking broken Engnish with us and we shared a smile.

As the days in La Paz drew on I formed the habit of eating there each night, by the time I was ready to leave dude knew what I wanted. From the seats the entertainment of the malecon was easy to see. The locals set up quite elaborate entertainment each night as a precursor to their carnivale. Boxing rings, brass bands, beautiful women bursting to be named Miss La Paz. And then the oddities of Mexico, clowns playing double bass guitars and political volunteers handing out voting cards.

May the Peace of our town be with you

We arrived so early after rolling down through canyons and from one side of Baja to the other across a highway potholed and emotionally troubled from the start. Dogs ate AK, dogs ate Waz, dogs ate me and we looked for a better place after breakfast of pancakes and orange juice and coffee and beans and man I wanted more orange juice, it was so good to my throat.



Then we slept inside the Hotel Lorimar, the air conditioner was too noisy to turn on but we tempted ourselves with its cold breeze anyway. Then it became quiet and I slept and they slept and we woke hours later still wanting to be asleep. We walked along the malecon and stared at the water, wondering where the beaches were and how we could not get to them right now. I could have dived into that harbour in my jeans and boots if it wasn't for my boredom.

By now I am all but refusing to speak Spanish, it's too hard and I am tired and everyone speaks English anyway.

These Giant Creatures

Spitting and dorsalling and rolling and eyeing you off. Grey Whale mum and calf at the side of the boat, waiting for their belly to be scratched for days to free them off barnacles and then you think again. It's not easy to decide to pat a whale.

It's the new age sensation of 1997 and the whale noise CD, now I can understand it and I will buy one when I get back to shore.



They were so graceful, I felt sadness for them been coralled between jewish senior citizens from New York on lunchtime cruisers and backpackers on fishing boats. They most likely hated us but I heart for them, I fell for whales that day.

The Salt of the Earth

So maybe this could be a piece of Mexico, less English, less concrete, more beauty for damn sure.

The night rider

You ride, ride, ride out through the city in the back of a station wagon and Christ is on the hilltop, peering and leering down on you and La Hedonista. There's the idea, floating in the middle of your mind that you are about to get the fuck hit out of you, maybe something dark, long and sharp threatened at your arse before they take your safety net of visa, passport, cash, bag. Then you don't really need it to live, you might actually feel free.

But in Tijuana they don't commit crime in day light. Vice is saved the dark.

So we waited for hour, hour, hour at Tijuana's bus terminal and then a big bus that did not look big enough rolls in and you figure, climb aboard. You watch slums and strip malls form one long chain, calling out for each other to have a meaningful relationship of cheap tiquila and child prostitution.

I slept, slept for some time and woke to a machine gun at my window. A babies face holding a machine gun and looking through the luggage underneath. Speed humps and harsh white light and then back in to the boiling black of night. I saw giant cactus, two-storey tall and with birds perched above them and eyes glowing back at me.

An apple and an orange cost me 7 pesos, I smiled and climb back on. Tried to sleep and watch out the window at the same time.

Border town

It's the most notable of border posts, a giant Mexican flag flies high above Tijuana.

Mexico ... well Tijuana at least

It's odd, something of an identity crisis where two economies, two cultures, two times clash viciously and desperate not to give.

Tijuana is a shit hole filled with leeches, vices and fast food. Tonight we could have watched a donkey fuck a woman for $US70 - it was there on the street for us to buy, to consume like a hot dog between sunglasses and burritos. I am frightened, I feel lonely but I feel comfortable in the middle of all this hurly.

I am with company, with compadres and we are well together. We get moody, I get moody at least and I know I push them away but we are here, in Mexico together and that really is enough for the moment.

We're trying to push on Baja Spur, Santa Rosaria perhaps, somewhere below the 28th parallel. Where we go forward another hour, or another hour away. Another hour closer to nothing, which is maybe what we are looking for.