We packed up our La Cruz house on Saturday and had everything ready to load. We hadn't made it to Roberto's Xocolat for dinner during our stay so we splurged had went there Saturday night. It's perched on the side of a cliff with an amazing view of La Cruz, the marina and Banderas Bay. Perfect way to end our stay - and dinner was excellent. But dang, we forgot our camera!
Early Sunday morning Matt started loading the car. He is an amazing packer. He was watched over by this sweet sculpture. I think it's St. Francis of Assisi, but I'm not expert on saints.
We have our own traveling angel that was given to us by Matt's mom. This sweet face will go with us to each new home. Here she is in the car, already to pull out.
We walked down to the Sunday market for one last visit. Matt loves the marlin burritos that one of the vendors makes and he wanted those for his lunch. And he wanted to say hasta la vista to Martin, his favorite La Cruz cigar man.
We left about 10:30 and had an uneventful drive to Mazatlan....although I think we definitely took the scenic route. Matt forged his own way, rather than obey the GPS. We saw a lot of little fishing villages along the coast and field after field of mango and banana trees, and still got into Mazatlan before sunset. We found the hotel with no problem. The malecon in Mazatlan is beautiful with some amazing sculptures. Unfortunately it was too dark for pics.
Baja Ferries have two routes to La Paz. The largest one is between Mazatlan and La Paz. But this trip is 16 hours. The other option is the route between Topolobampo and La Paz. Topo is about a five or six hour drive north of Mazatlan, but that ferry trip is only 7 hours. Because of Hermann, we decided to take the Topo ferry. They allow dogs on both ferries, but there is no option to walk them or feed them and that's just too long. But we wanted to buy our ferry tickets in Mazatlan so we could have that all taken care of when we eventually arrived in Topo.
On Monday morning we were out of the hotel by 8:00 and then went to the Baja ferry pier in Mazatlan. This was definitely a situation where I was glad I had some Spanish! No one spoke even a bit of English! I explained to the guard at the ferry pier what we wanted to do. He told us to join this line of semi trucks waiting to be weighed.....and quite the line it was. We inched along, sandwiched between all these semis and finally made our way to the weigh station. There the attendant measured the length of our car and weighed it. Asked for our passports and some basic info from Matt (name, age, nationality), filled out a slip of paper, and then sent us off to the ticket office.
There were some people ahead of us in line, so we took a number. They were serving #19 and we were #29. Not bad we thought. Well, it was 1 1/2 hours before we got to the ticket window. This is a VERY slow process. But the ticket agent understood my Spanish well enough to know we wanted two passenger tickets from Topo, plus the car and our "mascota" and that we wanted a "cabina". I asked about where Hermann would stay, but she just told me that as long as he had a crate he would be fine. She also told us we needed to be lined up to load our car in Topo by 9:00 p.m. - the ferry is scheduled to leave at midnight. The total cost was about the equivalent of $300 USD. Not bad to save at least four hard days of driving!
The drive from Mazatlan to Topo was fine. Good roads and not much traffic. This is a huge center for agriculture. We saw miles of fields growing citrus, nuts, tomatoes, squash, peppers and beans. We later found out that it's not just and fruits and vegetables that are grown in this area; and that the cartel is very powerful here.
We arrived at Topo about 6:00, not long before sunset. We located the ferry pier and then went into to Topo for dinner. There is definitely not a lot going on in Topo! A few stands on the street selling tacos, hot dogs and ceviche. And that's about it....and we had three hours to kill here. Luckily there was a Christmas program being held at the waterfront so we watched a Spanish version of Disney story re-enactments. It was fun. Then we had a hot dog and some ice cream....and we just waited.
A bit before 9:00 p.m. we headed to the pier. We joined three rows of cars waiting to load, we were about six or seven cars from the front of the line. All the semis were in another lot. And we waited some more. We did meet up with one other American who was waiting to board and he'd made this trip several times. He gave us some idea of what to expect, and also verified that Hermann would need to stay in the car for the entire trip. I took this opportunity to give him plenty of time out of his crate. At 11:00 p.m. they started loading the cars onto the ferry. Only the driver is permitted to drive the car on and off the ferry, so I put Herm in his crate, told Matt good-bye and went to join the other passengers waiting to walk on. About 11:15 they started to board the walk on passengers and there was a big rush for the stairs. I went as well.....not sure why. They let a few passengers go past the stairs, but they were just standing in another line waiting to cross the bridge to the ferry. The rest of us were still jammed in the stairs, and lots of crying babies! Who could blame them, way past their bed-time! I decided to go back to the waiting area, I was in no hurry to board. Finally about 11:30 they started letting passengers go off the stairwell into another waiting area. I gave it another five minutes for the crowd to clear and went up myself. Well, I should have waited. After you got off the stairwell, they divided the group into two lines, one for men and another for women. The marina guards (in camo uniformes and armed with ak47s were searching some of the men's carry on luggage. The women weren't searched, but a drug dog walked up and down both rows. The drug dog had already checked out our car while I was waiting with Matt, and was especially interested in Herm. He immediately picked up Herm's scent on me and stopped right in front of me. Luckily his handler had remembered us from the car search, laughed and went on.
I finally got on the ferry about 11:50 and went to the reception desk for our cabin key. Matt and I had prearranged to try and meet at the bar, or if he couldn't find me there to come to the cabin. At this point I really just wanted to go to the cabin and collapse in the bunk, thought Matt could find me there. Well....in Mazatlan we had been assigned cabin 98, but the receptionist gave me keys for cabin 96 instead. I didn't notice until I was nearly to the cabin. So I through my bag in the cabin, and headed to the bar to wait for Matt. I was sure he was already on the boat as they'd started loading the cars so long ago. Well, the bar was closed and no sign of Matt waiting for me. I sat on the sofa outside the bar....and didn't move even after it opened. About 12:20 a very tired Matt Sullins came up the steps. Our car had been one of the last few loaded, he had driven on just about midnight.
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| Manny the Mariner wedged in with all the big boys |
We went to our cabins, took another dose of dramamine, and that was it for us. We saw nothing else of the ferry, although what we did see was very nice, much like an older, simple cruise ship. Our cabin was small, but very clean and all we wanted were the beds anyway. Matt was out like a light; I slept about four hours but was freezing. I managed to grope my way to closet and I grabbed his jacked to sleep in, but was still too cold to sleep. In the morning after we turned on the light, I saw that there were two extra blankets in the room, I could have used both of them!
We docked in La Paz about 7:00 a.m. and I just took a seat and waited while Matt went down with the other drivers. I knew I'd have a long wait as he'd need to go through customs before I could join him....but didn't realize how long. Once again, he was one of the last cars off the ferry. The customs in La Paz did a thorough search of our car. He had to unload Hermann and some of the bags, but luckily nothing off the car top carrier. The custom agent was very polite and friendly and admired Matt's cigar collection. Matt actually offered him one but he refused it. He also laughed about my stash of Absolut. Matt eventually cleared customs at 10:00 a.m. and picked me up. We took Herm to the first open area we could find and finally let him out of his crate and gave him water. Poor baby, but he seemed find.
Found our new home in La Paz; it's actually in El Centenario. So different from La Cruz, but beautiful in it's own way. Sand and cactus everywhere. Our house is right on the beach. This isn't a swimming beach, but still lovely to look at. Herm loves this big, sandy yard to guard and spends most of his days on our front porch.
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There is a roof top deck where we can see the bay at night; and the full moon was beautiful rising over La Paz.
We settled into our new home, unpacked our things, and made a grocery store run on Tuesday. And we slept so good that night after this long trip. Wednesday morning I took Herm out and he was peeing blood and there were drops of blood around the house. Of course I went into panic mode. We took him to a vet in La Paz (English speaking thankfully) who gave him a thorough exam and decided it was a bladder infection from that long trip. He tried to give him an IV treatment but Herm would have nothing to do with that. So instead he got about four injections, we left with some vitamin C, pain meds, and antibiotics. We also bought a months supply of a special food, six months of heart worm preventative, and one month of Frontline. Total cost was less than $100. Not too bad. Herm was doing much better by that afternoon.
So now, we plan to spend just a few days doing nothing. The hard packed sand along the beach here is perfect for riding our bikes. I'm starting yoga classes today, and in a few days we'll find a Spanish tutor for me. But no rush; we're ready to chill!
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