Feb 7--La Paz, La Paz, We Finally Made it to La Paz!!!

Yes indeed, we have arrived in La Paz! Even though it's not the end of our ride, it seems like we have achieved a milestone (or would that be a kilometerstone???).

The sunrise was beautiful this morning, and the four of us were on the road by 8:00.

Today was entirely pavement, which was kind of nice. There were some hills in the first 10 miles or so, but then it pretty much flattened out.

We stopped at a little roadside tienda and had Cokes and pan dulce. Then, it was the race to La Paz! Sarah took off with an early lead, followed by me, Brent, then Tom. Tom, seeing that his wife was getting away, took off like a bat outta hell after her. I put the hammer down myself, and pulled away from Brent, but in no way even got near Tom and Sarah. The legs were pumping as hard as possible. I'd see Brent gaining on me, but when I'd come to a small rise, I'd hammer up as hard as I could, and gain some distance on him. But, he was tenacious, and made me work to stay ahead of him. We rode like that for what seemed like forever, but was probably about 10 miles, maybe a little more.

We pulled into a gas station just at the beginning of El Centenario. Tom and Sarah were, of course, already there, but said they hadn't been there long. We got some yogurt, and I ate my cookies.
From there we rode much easier the last 6 miles to La Paz. At the Bienvenido La Paz sign, we stopped for the photo op.

As we rode under an overpass, we spotted, of all things, a Walmart! We decided to stop and check to see if they had masks and snorkels. They did, and I also got a rash guard so I won't get sunburned while we are snorkeling. Brent stayed out with the bikes. While we were waiting for him to go get his mask and snorkel, there was this seriously mentally ill woman who was trying to give this American guy a piece of her cake. He kept yelling no at her. Walmart security came out and shooed her away. It looked as if she had gone swimming in this gray mud or sewage, or something disgusting. She was covered from the waist down in this stuff. She started coming back. Sarah quickly moved her bike around to where Tom was standing. Then, the woman tried to give Sarah some cake. Tom actually had to grab the woman by the shoulders, and turn her away from Sarah. She finally went away for good. That woman had some serious problems!

We rode the rest of the way to the Malecon, a bike and pedestrian pathway along the waterfront.

Once we were on the Malecon, we relaxed and could actually look around. Just as in Tecate, they have one of the multicolored La Paz signs. We took photos there.

Next order of business was food. There was a nice looking restaurant just across the street. I had Aguacate Rellanos con Camerones and some Tacos de Pescado. It was all delicious.

We followed the route to the Hotel Pension California. It's basically a hostel. We weren't sure we would stay here, but the wifi is good, and the rooms are cheap. The four of us got the last room, and it happens to be a room for 4, as in, there are four double beds! Yes, it's a big room!

I posted the last four days of blogs, and then made our plane reservations. We will be flying out of San Jose Del Cabo on Feb 20th. We'll arrive in Portland on the 21st. We are taking the same flight as Tom and Sarah which will be a blast! We have a 15 hour layover in Houston, but who cares!

That gives us plenty of time to ride the East Cape to Cabo, with time to stop and go snorkeling at the many beautiful beaches. It'll still be a dirt road, but hopefully the really hard part is behind us.

We are not leaving La Paz until the 10th. That means we have two full days off to explore the city. We saw a Burger King. I wonder if there is a Subway???

Justin is here, and so is Tim. Unfortunately, I think they are both leaving tomorrow. Justin, and a hiker named Chaz went to dinner with us (interesting side note about Chaz--yesterday, he was camping out, and in the middle of the night, woke up to a skunk biting his arm. He has spent today getting multiple shots against possible rabies. On top of that, it is his 60th Birthday--what a way to spend a birthday!). Well, dinner was more like something akin to a pub crawl. We started at one place with drinks and nachos. Then we stopped at a tamale stand. Finally, after a rather lengthy walk, we ended up at a taco place. Of course, after tacos we had to have ice cream! Then we walked back to the hotel. I'm still very full!