La Paz to Topolobampo aboard Baja Ferries

March 2007

Disheveled and tired we made it back to our apartment in La Paz and I decided it was apropos to partake in the local custom of siesta – an all day siesta. Josh went about some sort of business and it was decided that we should leave the next day, a Sunday, for the mainland via either the ferry to Mazatlan or the more fun to say Topolobampo. It being a Saturday night when I awoke from my siesta I didn’t take too kindly to waking up supremely early and dealing with immigration/customs/and ferry personnel. So I reasoned with my brother and told him I wasn’t leaving the next day (I know that’s not reasoning but that’s how things work with Josh) and he said that he was and that he’d meet me in Mazatlan. We were in accord, at this point we needed a bit of space from each other anyway.

Josefina and Juan were throwing us a going away party that night so we made our way over to their house after Josh had packed up his kit (that’s for all of our British/Kiwi/Aussie reader’s out there). They’d prepared a feast of empanadas, tacos dorados, taquitos, guacamole and salsa, and a celebratory cake. Even more of the family came this time as spouses and cousins and their kids came to meet the gringo part of the family before they left. Everyone was ravenously starving and as soon as the big cardboard box soaked from the grease of the empanadas arrived it was gone in a matter of minutes. Everyone was very happy to have seen us again and made us promise that it wouldn’t be another twenty years before we, or our parents, returned. As the cake was polished off Marisol invited me to go out with her friends to the dance club – I told her I would join her later once my hands were colder (mas mano fria). As the party winded-down Josh and I made our gracious exit and headed home; he for sleep and me for a change of clothes.

I walked the mile to the malécon and the row of bars that included Carlos n’ Charlie’s, The Jungle, and some other third thing in this list*. After a very uncomfortable swing around The Jungle in which it was difficult to move at all let alone dance I found Marisol with her girlfriends in the VIP section under the cover band’s stage. I crossed over the velvet rope and tripped- an excellent entrance if I do say so myself. She was with five or six beautiful girlfriends from school that were muy agradable (very friendly/agreeable). We sat and yelled at the band in between songs – they knew the singer so it wasn’t obnoxious – to play a cover of Radiohead’s I’m a Creep which he didn’t do. So we drank and danced to the tunes that he was choosing – Guns ‘n Roses, U2, some Mexican song that included, “Chinga Los Gringos” (Fuck the Gringos) – until closing time came around and Marisol’s curfew was coming up. But then their friend Juan, the singer, began the opening bars to I’m a Creep and everyone left in the bar started singing along with the unity that only a song that asserts the singers own debased nature, non-belonging, and wish to be something special when in reality he is merely a creep. Very-sing along. As the last bars fade away and Thom Yorke intones, ‘I don’t belong here, I don’t belong here,’ the bouncers nod in agreement and we file past.

The next morning by the time I woke up Joshua had left for the ferry terminal outside of town so I meandered about my daily tasks free from the confines of having anyone to tell me what to do or by when to do it. I spent part of the day walking around the streets near our old house before making my way over to the kindergarten that I went to and hanging onto the fence for a while. It was strange to think that I had been confined in this little rectangular building and the tiny playground replete with tractor tires painted bright colors for a formative year twenty years ago. I didn’t remember the days spent inside so well since Joshua and I would cut school just about every day to go and play in the streets or at the beach playground. So the nostalgia was short but sweet.

I crossed the street to Humberto and Betty’s house for an early supper and some mano fria. We were all sitting at the table on the front porch discussing Joshua and I splitting up for a bit and how he’d fared with the ferry when Marisol came home from school and said, “I just saw Joshua’s motorcycle on the malécon in front of a coffee shop.” So we decided that we’d all hop in a car and go down and surprise him on his ‘ferry trip.’ We piled into the aunt’s Volkswagen Bora with the girls and headed for a cruise down the main street (not unlike Duval Street with the endless supped-up cars driving back and forth all day since they have nothing to do) but the girls weren’t ‘dressed’ for the malécon so they refused to get out of the car lest they be seen by the bevy of boy suitors. So I hopped out of the car to find Josh coming out of the coffee shop with a smile: “It’s Sunday, it’s very hard to do immigration things on a Sunday in Mexico.” I smiled too and we laughed like at the end of a cheesy sitcom.

Monday seemed like a better day to deal with these cosas, things, so we headed back to Casa del Diablo for a bit before saying our goodbyes since we’d be leaving early in the morning. The next day we went looking for the immigration office – harder than it seems – to finally have our passports stamped and receive visas for our stay before heading to the ferry terminal. We found the office and started the proceedings which involved Joshua walking for half an hour to a bank in order to pay the fees, me going to a small tienda a few blocks away to buy the necessary papers to fill out, and asking for our passports to actually be stamped before we were able to race the five miles to the terminal to be able to check-in in time.

Buying the Immigration Papers from a tienda.

Securing Las Motos for the trip across the Sea of Cortez(notice Elmo).

After a very fast and beautiful ride we made it to the terminal in time to see sixteen other motorcycles being readied for the crossing. After a few SNAFU’s like the power going out, we received our Temporary Import of a Vehicle certificates and made our way to buy tickets to either Mazatlán which was going to take eighteen hours or Topolobampo which was more of a straight-shot on a newer ferry and would take seven hours. We chose the one with the better name. After securing the motorcycles in between the other sixteen motorcycles, BMWs incidentally, we made our way to the passenger decks which were seriously opulent. They even had a pretty good fish/chicken taco buffet that was included with the crossing. As we pulled out of the harbor; a large task since this ferry was probably carrying upwards of 250 tractor trailer trucks, we were waved away by a lone seal basking on one of the channel markers.

A Loose Seal named Lucille Wishes us a Bon Voyage.

We made friends with a family that was traveling home in their van to a small village north of Guadalajara as well as befriending a polish guy who was traveling for the first time in his life and had randomly chosen Baja California as his destination but we made sure to avoid the other biker’s since then it would just be talking shop and that’s not usually the most interesting thing to talk about… I taught the family’s youngest son, who was skating around with those shoes with wheels on them, how to count to one hundred, say his ABCs, and tell his mother and father that he now speaks English for a while and Josh was on the deck for a whale of a whale sighting: for more than an hour a whale had been jumping fully out of the water and then ‘sailing’ with one fin out of the water behind the ferry. All I saw were some jellyfish and a lone sea turtle when I went on deck.

The ferry pulled into the pitch black harbor with only the smallest of a sliver of moon surveying the wind whipped bay. I walked out onto one of the decks that housed the rescue boats which were lined up and ready for a sinking and sneaked in between a couple and watched as the deft dance of docking took place. Pangas scurrying from mooring buoys to pilings as lines were thrown to them from the deck and they puttered out to secure them. It was slow motion until all the points met and everyone began to line up at different exit points. Since we were on motorcycles we were told to go first since they put them in the commercial traffic hold so he headed for our line and told the Polish guy that we’d meet him outside and give him a ride to town since it was five miles away. We headed into the container hold and took off all the tie-downs that we’d strapped around them and made our way out to the mainland of Mexico. Josh and I switched bikes since I didn’t want to ride someone else and we met up with the Polish guy to give him a ride to a hostel. We figured that we might as well share a room for the night to keep down on costs.

After a hellish ride on Joshua’s motorcycle that really doesn’t have much by the way of a headlight we made it to a hotel by midnight but there wasn’t any off-street parking which meant; unsafe for motorcycle in big city. So we looked around on foot until we found another around the corner which would allow us to park the two motorcycles in the lobby (a tiny, tiny lobby). We maneuvered them into very tight spots and asked about a taco stand in the vicinity.

Our Motorcycles in the Lobby of the Hotel. (Later in the morning when Josh moved his bike outside Elmo was stolen within minutes off of the back.)

We went and had some vampiros and gorditas with jamaica (haa-my-kah) juice and learned that the Polish Gentleman needed to make the one and only tourist train in Mexico the next morning at the Statione de Ferro Carrils on the outskirts of town. Early in the morning. I decided that this was a job best dealt with by Josh so I was polite at six in the morning when they woke me up to say goodbye and Josh rode him to the train station for the next leg of his journey.

Our Polish friend leaving for his Grand Tour through the French Riviera.

*The one and only reference to the Spongebob Squarepants Movie and the best joke in it.

New Map thingy

Cabo Wabo San Lucas

Spring Break 2007!!!

We essentially did the loop of La Paz, Todos Santos, Cabo San Lucas and back to La Paz.

The next day we decided to go for a day drive down to the tip of Baja to Los Cabos but since Josh wasn’t currently enjoying the deafening noise of his broken muffler we stripped mine of panniers and doubled up for the ride. After long and involved deliberations and planning meetings with Humberto and Betty and any other friend/family member that happened along we were told to head down to Todos Santos for breakfast/lunch depending upon departure time, then down to a surf town by the name of Pescadero, then go through Cabo San Lucas for dinner before booking it back to La Paz. What ended up happening is an altogether different story: we left late which is always my fault, we cruised through Todos Santos without even stopping (but we did appreciate its palms and oasis-like character and artsy shops before accelerating out of town), we totally missed the turnoff for the surf town which we could see would have been delightful, we pulled over at some point for a solitary beach walk which ended up trying to be very careful to avoid the multiple RVs parked on the beach, then down and into Cabo San Lucas for lunch and trouble.

A Fancy photo of Josh and I (solely in reflection but at least I’m in color…)

My turn to do a reflection photo but this time we’re all in color.

Josh being pummeled by the waves he once mocked.

Approaching Cabo San Lucas through industrial wastelands.

The Fishing Fleet coming back into port after a terrible day not catching any fish.

We pulled into town in the early afternoon and went directly to the marina and the breakwater entrance for some quick reminiscing before heading to a restaurant. It was twenty years ago that we’d pulled into this harbor and dropped anchor. Our parents went ashore first in order to check in with the customs authorities before coming back to get us to go exploring. But when they came back they didn’t look very happy; they climbed on deck and addressed us all at once. “It seems that we’re not allowed to bring in five people because Mexico is limiting how many people they want in the country. They’ve only given us permission for four so we’re going to have to leave one of you behind. We’ve decided to let you three determine amongst yourselves which one stays here.” At that point Joshua and I, the youngest, were pretty much scared shitless about being left behind. Noah ran off for some thinking time while Josh and I started trying to decide the criteria that would determine which one of us would be voted on by the other two, ‘well Noah and Ian still wet their beds, Josh is a terror most of the time, Ian’s still a baby so who needs him, Noah’s the only one who’s old enough to make it on his own… etc.’ Then Noah ran back into the room and started laughing at us. It seems that it happened to be April 1^st and we’d just been fooled. To this day I think that’s quite an extreme prank to play on your kids: “We don’t want one of you anymore. Decide amongst yourselves which one it is. Then we leave you.” But I suppose it’s really just close to the truth since at one point Josh was put up for adoption when he was younger but it never went all the way through. Obviously.

Showing our dislike of Cabo San Lucas Spring Break 2000-fucking 7!!!

We had some lunch and then walked down the beach towards loud music. As it happened we were there during the height of Spring Break 2007!!!! Woooo Hooooo! Yeah! Tequila shots! All around, all night, alright! We tried to take it but could only handle an hour- impressive, I know – before running away. But the sunset was gorgeous as we ran down the beach and it reflected off of the calm sea and the mountains running into the sea and the famous natural arch cut out of the cliffs at water level.

You have got to be kidding me.

The man in the mariachi hat has two gun straps slung around him full of shot glasses, in his dual holsters bottles of tequila.

My friend Lauren is working on one of these yachts in the bay.

The two of us got separated for a while before we ran into each other again and decided to go to the major club called Squid Row and try to join the Spring Breakers instead of beating them. We ended up having a great time as crazy as this sounds with a young Canadian girl’s* mother who was visiting her daughter for a week. She was so lovingly disapproving of all the kids gyrating close together that she built a giant stick out of four oversized straws and began hitting a young couple to separate them. This went on for an hour as we took turns hitting people that were ‘too close’ together to be civilized; then we found out what the oversized straws were used for and ended up getting quite drunk. Josh and I were merely on a day trip so we had no plans on staying in Cabo for the night but then it was four in the morning and the club was closing and we had to find a place. We jumped in a taxi with a bunch of other kids and went on the rounds dropping girls and boys off at different hotels until it came our turn and we asked the driver, “What is the best place to sleep on the beach?” He told us to get out.

*This girl had an interesting job as a problem solver/cleaner not unlike The Wolf for a large resort; she takes care of all the issues that come up when one of the guests somehow dies on vacation, i.e. drowning, cliff diving, or alcohol poisoning. Luckily we weren’t staying at her hotel or drinking there…

I’m sorry but it’s true; we went to Squid Row.

I believe this is the equivalent of going to Sloppy Joe’s in Key West.

Our Canadian mother chaperone for the evening and her castigating straw below.

That’s the couple that is dancing too close together and this|| is the straw that pried them apart.

As we were making our way down to the beach we noticed a hotel construction site that looked like it was easy enough to climb the fence and just sleep on the floor of one of the incomplete rooms; Josh hopped over first and I stumbled over second. He had turned on his flashlight and was climbing the first story when I heard a blood-curdling scream and Josh came running back out. It turned out that he had woken the night watchmen/construction worker who was living there who thought we were robbers or trespassers (we were the latter not the former) and had come at Josh with a club. We told him that we were just looking for a place to sleep and hadn’t meant to startle him and of course now we’d leave. He followed us back to where we had climbed the fence and we said goodnight. We laughed a bit as we walked down to the beach and looked for some comfortable spot to curl up on. We didn’t find one but we did pass out until dawn.

This was a very painful way to wake up; still chilled from the night before, sand mixed with alcohol in the mouth, clothes caked with I don’t want to know what, and a nice hangover headache to top it off. Let’s go ride a motorcycle everyone! Josh drove in the morning as I was tending to nod off on the back of the bike before we made it to Todos Santos again and had to stop for some breakfast to soak up the booze and coffee to caffeinate the sleeper on the back of a motorcycle (this is a really dangerous form of somnambulism). After three cups of coffee I was still really tired but decided it would be best if I drove since I wouldn’t be able to nod off that way. Turns out I was dangerously right but right nonetheless.

El Diablo and the Pelicans

La Paz Continued

Late February - Early March?

We’d settled into the apartment next door to the house that we used to live in (and by house I mean garage next to the house) for a few days when El Diablo decided to take us out in his lanchita for a view of the harbor. He wanted to see if we’d remember where the boat had been anchored as well as show us around the giant harbor and get a different perspective on La Paz (which translates to The Peaceful Place). So we went over to Casa Quiroz for an early lunch that consisted of simmered chicken breast marinated with Coca-Cola, fresh tortillas, rice, and jalapenos before we loaded the little tin dinghy into the back of his truck and drove the two blocks to the boat ramp.

Pollo’s Fiery Red Truck that is driven by El Diablo which hauled the lanchita to the harbor.

We launched her after purchasing a couple of Caguama’s (literal translation is sea turtle but it actually refers to the big beers, you know, the big one’s?)* to keep us cool in the midday sun. We loaded the gasoline and mounted the 7.6 horsepower engine on the transom and puttered out into the harbor; we’d made it maybe three hundred yards before El Diablo noticed that the engine wasn’t pissing out water which meant that it wasn’t being cooled which also meant that it was about to overheat and conk out on us. So we turned off the engine and Josh and I grabbed the two tiny oars and began to row back to shore to see if we could fix the problem.

Once she touched the beach we hauled her up a bit and set about searching for some wire to clear the blocked water intake; a local fisherman helped us out and we spent a hot ten minutes trying to jam wire up the engine before putting her back to sea. She cranked up on the first try but still wasn’t pissing. So Josh suggests that he and I just row us around the bay for a while. I suggest that he row us around for a bit. But somehow I have to put my caguama down and start rowing into the wind for the next half hour. Great idea. El Diablo sat in back yelling at his while lauding his new two horsepower engines rowing in the front (dos caballos de caballeros). We’d almost made it to the other side of the harbor when we happened upon one of the anchored sailboats with a lone person onboard who saw our predicament and offered help. “Oh no, we’re just out for a leisurely row. Don’t worry about us,” Josh flippantly replied as behind him I motioned the international call of distress.

El Diablo and his pinché fucking motor.

But we did notice that the boat was registered in Molalla, Oregon. Now this is quite a coincidence since our boat was built in Mollala and since it’s a tiny, tiny town in the MOUNTAINS of Oregon that doesn’t see much of the build-a-sailboat-in-the-mountains-and-sail-around-the-world-on-it zeitgeist. Our father spent twelve years building our sailboat in a shed near the log cabin we lived in miles and miles from the nearest neighbor (technically our boat is registered as Trout Creek, Oregon because that is the name of the creek that ran by the shed and the cabin and emptied into the Molalla River twenty feet away but that’s neither here nor there) so if someone else had been building a sailboat or even planning a similar voyage then they probably would have known about each other. So we quickly asked him if he was the owner and what the story was but it turned out that he was just watching the boat for the captain and that he wouldn’t be back until later. We vowed to come back at the appointed time. And then we didn’t so we’ll never know. Kinda disappointing, huh?

You can watch El Diablo trying to commune/catch with his bare hands these pelicans.
We loaded up the lanchita and headed back to Casa Quiroz but not before picking up some Tecate. Once we’d put the dinghy back in the backyard and walked into the house Marisol and Betty couldn’t help but laugh and say, “Manos Frias.” “Cold hands,” which refers to one whom is often seen partaking of the pleasures of a cold beverage of the alcoholic variety thus permanently having frigid hands, or an alcoholic. Not the first time nor the last time we’d hear this refrain. El Diablo then invited us to a men’s gathering that evening at a club for Baja 1000 racers. The girls all laughed and warned us not to go but we couldn’t refuse so we headed back to the apartment for siesta and agreed to meet back at the house around seven.

The night turned cold after sunset and we arrived bundled up for the drive to this ‘club.’ First we stopped off for some beer as is customary. Then we pulled up to what looked like a mechanics garage and walked into the back yard where a bunch of chairs and coolers had been set up across from a tent and tables with a smoldering grill being readied for carne asada (roasted meat). Everyone was slowly trickling in and we were introduced around to the fifteen or so gentlemen that were at hand. Some were government officials including the head of Baja California tourism and others were more directly involved in the races either sponsoring or racing. One guy that we met races against his wife who has her own dune buggy while others raced solo or by motorcycle (probably the most taxing way to go) and everyone was quite excited to hear about our trip by motorcycle down to Tierra del Fuego so we got talked up a bit by the government officials who then introduced us to the editor of the monthly Baja Races newspaper. He was so excited about the trip that he called up his lead reporter and had him come over right away to do an interview with us. We waited until he arrived by partaking in some more beers and then the carne asada was ready so every dug in as the saboya, grilled onions, were passed out and the salsa’s were readied for consumption. Everyone fought over the meat like cavemen until there was none left – some scraps were left for the kids that had attended for some sort of mandatory induction into the world of machismo racing.

Finally the star reporter arrived and we were ready for the interview which was mostly Spanish sprinkled with Spanglish as Joshua and I took turns explaining the impetus, planning, and adventures so far. They took some photos and I told him to feel free to use any of the ones on the website and we wrapped it up. We had a few drinks with the author and he offered to translate NTMD into Spanish for free, we said sure. So the next day I bought the domain noeslosdiarosmotocicleta.com just so that we could be an equal opportunity vicarious traveler site. Of course translating how much I’ve been writing for the blog would be an arduous undertaking especially gratis so nothing has come of it. Yet.

Everyone at the ‘meeting’ proceeded to get ever more drunk until the guitars were broken out and a great big banda singing circle was started. One of the gentlemen was the class clown of sorts, a bit of a loco who had been chatting with Josh for quite a while and things had gotten out of hand. He had a slight dislike of Americans as well as the normal Mexican antipathy to homosexuality which Josh had riled up with constant calling of him as a joto or fag which Josh thought funny. It then became some sort of joke in which Josh sold him my ass for 300 pesos which apparently was a bargain. He then came over to me (having no knowledge of the joke) and started pulling out his wallet and trying to grab me. Obviously I was nonplussed. I started protesting and pushing him away slightly violently which only made him more aggressive. I looked over to Humberto, El Diablo, for help and an explanation which he gave by coming over and protecting me from this crazy man and explaining that he’s a crazy man and to take no notice.

The Mexican Gentlemen’s Baja 1000 Club Meeting(with gringo guests).

The crazy man that was trying to buy me for 300 pesos. 300 pesos!

*Reference to Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming.

Dulce Doctorcita Daniela Sing-Along

Querétaro Continued

We spent the next few days being chauffeured around by Doctorcita Daniela to various municipal offices taking care of official business. What would normally take an hour usually ended up taking six which is par for the course down here. At one point the power was being turned off every ten minutes because some electricians were fixing the lines for the office; this meant that we had to wait three hours for one document to be printed and signed. Luckily our insurance covers third party liability so the car that I hit was paid for but unluckily enough I have no insurance for myself nor the motorcycle and needless to say the other car had no insurance so I’ll be paying out of pocket. On the day of determining culpability we were supposed to meet with our appointed lawyer at eleven on a Monday but after we arrived on time (big mistake) the woman in charge of the proceedings asked if we wouldn’t mind waiting three or four hours since they were kinda busy at the moment. This turned out to be alright since our lawyer didn’t show up until four hours later.

What’s left after the fire in broad daylight.

My knee did that!

El Changa’s car in the huesero.

We hung out with the three guys that were in the car as they had been waiting even longer than us for some sort of closure and an estimate on the damages that the insurance was going to pay for. One of the guys was nicknamed La Chango which brought up a few jokes about him being a transvestite since for some reason he took the feminine form for the word monkey. He even had a belt buckle especially made for his hermaphroditic nature. We finally finished all the paperwork and were ready to head to the coche huesero, or car graveyard, to pick up the remnants of the motorcycle. But it turned out to be an hour drive away so not today.

El Changa is Angry! He’s about to smash my foot.

Instead it was the weekend of Semana Santa, Easter to the non-Mexican, and so Daniela and Tania invited us to their parents place in Texco which was about an hour and a half drive out of town. We loaded up the car Saturday morning and made the drive on the same dangerous libre roads that the accident happened on but other than a few crazy close calls (for some reason Mexicans prefer passing on blind corners) we made it to their hometown in the early afternoon. Their father and mother, Benito and Olivia, were waiting at the house to greet the two anachronistic gringos who had shown up somewhat randomly into the lives of their family. They immediately welcome us into the family just as their daughters had and we settled in quite quickly.

Each weekend the family of twenty one cousins and their parents get together for a giant lunch at grandma’s house and games of football, poker, dominos et. al. So after sunning for a while with the girls as they did their nails next to the indoor swimming pool that the mother had decided needed to be drained years ago and the father had decided that it might be a good place to install a well-stocked bar in the deep end we all headed over to grandma’s for the feast.

The Entrance to Grandma’s House.

The Bar at the deep end of the drained pool.

The Table is ready to go (notice the bottle of Coca-Cola as centerpiece… it’s a new marketing ploy that pushes for Coca-Cola to be a part of dinner that’s been pushed pretty hard)

The Sangria being made by Daniela’s Aunt and Uncle.

The Paella that our household brought over; we ate leftovers for the next week.

After three courses of different types of ceviché, (shrimp, octopus, and fish) the main course of Paella came out in deep, deep dishes. We sat at the overflow table, aka kids. After dessert and coffee a very competitive game of soccer began that devolved or evolved into daughters versus mothers. Surprisingly the mothers kicked ass after being quite hesitant about playing. The daughters came off of the field with bruised egos and bruises.

Mothers versus Daughters in the Thunderdome!

For a six-year-old he was awesome and actually one of the leading goal-scorers.

A big game of Texas Hold’em was started while the parents played dominos and the girls discussed plans for the night (after playing tug-of-war with the garden hose). [For some reason I was the first one out of the Hold’em game seems I’m a bit rusty or it’s hard to bluff beginners, either way it was slightly embarrassing.]

Me losing at Texas Hold’em.

Impressions by La Guera.

After some more drinks everyone decided upon a late afternoon siesta so we headed home to get ready for the evening in the plaza.

Once the girls were showered and dressed we walked to the plaza and hung out at grandma’s pharmacy on the corner as the family gathered slowly. We went over to the church and listened to mass in the overflow tent that was set up at the entrance before looking for some street fare (gorditas, vampiros, quesadillas, and tortas) was partaken. Then it was decided that we should go to the only bar in town which wasn’t in town but ten minutes outside so we all piled into a giant SUV and scarily began to drive at night in Mexico on a holiday; you are pretty much guaranteed that every driver is speeding, angry, and drunk. We get to the ‘bar’ which is really a converted mechanics garage with some speakers and lights set up around some tin fold out tables and chairs. You can either buy a box of beer or a bottle of rum and the girls always chose the latter. By the time all the cousins trickled in we had become quite a large and boisterous group of about twenty.

The cousins gather for some underage drinking if there is such a thing in Mexico.

One of the cousins by the name of Aldo is prone to fights (probably protective of his hot girlfriend) so he went over to another table and started punching a guy repeatedly into a wall. The guy didn’t like this. After a rush to separate them the other guy was taken outside and word got back to our table via his friends that he’d gone to get his gun from his car. Since we are with the family of Aldo, aka the target, it was unanimously decided that it wouldn’t be good to hang around behind him nor would it be a good idea to stay at the bar so everyone was rounded up and escorted out to the cars. Luckily the other guy was nowhere to be seen and so it was decided we’d had enough ‘excitement’ for the night and headed home.

The next day we awoke for a day excursion by panga through the local reservoir. We trespassed on an exclusive bungalow hotel island for a little while and then got the boot after the manager let us know that it costs 75 dollars per person per night. Then we made our way back to the boat launch where we ran into the friends of the guy that Aldo beat up who were idling around the tienda drinking beers twelve hours later. They bought a couple of six-packs and we all chilled in the shade and shot the shit about the night before. Turns out that Aldo and the other guy regularly get into fights but it’s quite irregular that the other one goes for his gun. I guess we just bring the good luck with us.

Being kicked off the private bungalow island hotel-thingy.

Josh is funny.