The Port of La Paz - Day 2 & 3

DAY TWO
[Feb 3, 2015]

M/V Westward at Marina Cortez

Awoke aboard the M/V Westward, docked at the far pier in the gringo-oriented Marina Cortez, which anchors one end of the long, busy waterfront in the gulf city of LaPaz.  Everyone had chores to do, and I spent the morning getting familiar with the boat and cleaning and re-organizing the aft bar/coffee station.  It was actually a pleasure polishing all the gleaming, varnished mahogany. 

I had time for a long walk around the marina docks – many big, $$ American yachts – accompanied most of the way by a solitary eared grebe, who paddled affably alongside the dock for much of the way. 

At first I thought the poor thing had only one leg, I could see it pumping, up and down, behind its fluffy round body.  But then realized the other leg was tucked up –just for fun? – soon he was using both feet quite freely.

I finally decided to turn around on my walk when I came to the last long dock, uninhabited by boats but completely taken over by brown pelicans, arranged along both edges like a gauntlet, and one lone heron policing the far end. The planks of this entire section of the dock were covered in white guano.  So, no thanks, not today.  I walked back the way I had come, back to the boat to help stow the bags of clean guest sheets and towels which had just arrived from the local laundry folk.

DAY THREE
[Feb 4, 2015]

La Paz waterfront from the bow of the Westward

LaPaz is a warm, friendly town.  Obviously the main industry is tourism, as the waterfront seems to cater to gringos; many open-air gift shops, cafes and hotels face the big, wide harbor. 

Along the Malecon

Guests posing with a sculpture

The long, pedestrian park along the shore is populated with folks roller-blading, skate-boarding, walking their dogs, out for a stroll; it is lined with white benches and large, fanciful stone sculptures.  This boulevard is called the Malecon – a term meaning pier or wharf.  It is easy to imagine the busy waterfront when the harbor was dotted with Spanish trading ships and local fishing boats instead of white sailboats and mega-yachts.

The Malecon is sparkling, and clean, but once you take a side street away from the harbor, shops are tinier, denser, dirtier, many seem long abandoned.  Perhaps just unfortunate from the violent hurricane Odile that swept through the area only 5 months ago.   Spray-painted graffiti replaces the eye-catching colorful décor of the main street.

I went with chef Tracie to visit the bustling Mercada Brava, or “farmer’s market” on Brava Street, to help her re-provision with fresh produce and fish for the next guest trip.  She rode her bicycle from the marina to a nearby car-rental outfit, returned driving a little red hatchback, and off we went into town, with two blue and white coolers bouncing in the back.  The mercada is a large cement-adobe building, divided up into crowded little square stalls.  The vendors are mostly fishermen and farmers, but I notice a few women selling colorful ceramics and textiles as well. 

Tracie handed me one of her two huge, nylon shopping bags -- one for fish and one for vegetables – and proceeded to scope out the teeming pescado stalls.  She’s quick and decisive – ‘2 kilos por favor!’-‘Aqui, dos cientos, gracias!’ – loading my bag with fresh fillets, scallops, crabs, shrimp and a baby octopus.  Guess I’ll be trying pulpo for the first time, at some point in the next week or two!

The individual stalls are permanent, yellow tile-countered cubicles with boards and basins for cleaning piles of fish (fish heads 40 pesos per kilo) or butchering chickens or a side of beef, and various bins and hooks for all manner of display.  The cement floor was kept hosed down by a smiling brown-skinned man sporting flip-flops and a wide black mustache.  At one stall, two tiny women were baking corn tortillas, packaged to sell by the kilo.  The fruit and vegetable stalls were piled high with colorful and unpronounceable produce.  Tracie picked up a large black plastic tub from a nearby stack and began filling it with tomatoes, tomatillos, beans, onions, peppers, papayas, mangoes, melons, each carefully and swiftly examined.  When it was full, a warm-faced senor appeared, handed her an empty tub and, putting the full tub on his head, walked behind the counter to his senora, who weighed and packaged everything.  In this way they waited on 3 customers simultaneously, and kept everything straight.  Tracie filled 4 tubs, and was glad we only had 1 block to walk back to the car, as her big bag was very heavy. 

When her purchases were all stowed away back at the boat (amazing organization!), she, Bill and Randy hopped in the car again and went off to the Mexican equivalent of Home Depot or Kmart, on the outskirts of town, to pick up other necessaries for the trip.  As soon as Tracie finally returned from the car rental on her bicycle once again, the bike was stowed away on the upper deck near the skiff, and it was time to head out to sea. 

Sunset as we leave La Paz

Just as the sun was lowering to the horizon, the big engine started, we pivoted off the spring line into the current, cast off from the dock, pulled away and chugged out into the harbor.  The only ones around to see us off were the pelicans lined up on the dock.

We set anchor in a pleasant cove in the dark, a mast light from one lone sailboat as our neighbor.  With no guests aboard this week due to last minute cancellations, captain Bill plans to get much-needed repair work done while we’re underway, heading leisurely north to Loreto to meet up with next week’s guests. 

In the meantime, just the 4 of us crew aboard, it feels much like private-yachting in this exotic tropical setting.  And we’re all enjoying the luxury of staying in guest staterooms while the repair work is going on in crew-world -- ie: the crew’s bunk quarters down front in the fo’c’sle.

Tracie made us a warm bacon-dressing spinach salad topped with a fine filet of trout, and Bill put episode 4 of the Horatio Hornblower series into the VCR:  the big screen hides behind the tilt-up mirror built into the leaded glass bookcases above the fireplace mantel (yes, the boat has glorious teak paneling and a working fireplace in the main salon!)  We all lounged on the sofas, eating a delicious supper and watching TV.  Aaaah.  And then, secure in our cove with a well-planted anchor, the waves rocked us ever so gently to sleep.