Saturday, January 14, 2012

 

0726, Sat, 011412.     La Paz.     All survived the unlucky day I hope.  We did just fine here in paradise.  We were on a mission.  It is time for us to renew our FM3 status, or whatever they call it now.  If we check in once a year we can stay in the country as long as we want.  It also gives us preferred check in at the immigration stop as we enter the country since all the tourist have to line up in their line.  We simply go to the line with the locals, maybe one or two others, and zip right through that part of check in.  Along with our efforts is the availability of health insurance which we will check into next week.  The hard part is the run around.  They have updated the entire process but I think we have it figured out after talking with the other cruisers who have gone through the process.  We had to walk about four or five miles to get the process started.  No, this isn't a requirement, we just chose to get the exercise. 

We stopped in at the radio shop to see how the guy is doing with our radio.  He is a great guy and speaks very little English.  He was apologizing for not having the radio finished and was saying something about water.  We finally figured out that a water pipe broke in his home, not the radio, and he had been trying to get it fixed.  We told him we would check on our way back and see if any progress had been made, on the radio, not the water pipe. 

We were off for the long walk that would have been impossible in the heat of summer but was quite pleasant with the cooler weather.  We found the office, right were we thought it was to be, went in the door, got in line and were back out within fifteen minutes.  Really unbelievably efficient.

We hiked back to the radio shop where the radio man took a break from working on his water pipe and put our radio back together.  We were on our way after a nice rest.

I forgot to mention, our first stop was Telcel for the banda acha internet service.  Nope, not ready.  We now had to wait for the ID numbers to be registered, come back at four.

We headed back to Neos for a rest up after the long hike and wait for four.  We headed back into the Telcel as designated and the original paperwork had been lost.  Sue came out to the dinghy with a handful of papers that I needed to sign since it is in my name.  I signed a dozen or more papers and sent Sue back.  One more trip with one spot missed.  Sue mentioned that in my hurry the lady was scrutinizing my signature, comparing it with my passport.  A little difficult trying to sign something while sitting in a dink, writing on the rough boards of the dock, ha.  We got the tool that should get us linked up with the internet, but couldn't use it for another hour. 

The La Paz waltz, tide heading one direction with the wind the other making for boats wandering all around, was over by six and we headed in for an adventure with Janet and Russ.  They heard about free salsa dancing at the park.  We headed out in search.  It turned into another long walk but the evening was beautiful and we enjoyed the stroll through neighborhoods we had never been to.  We found the park but no salsa.  The Chedraui grocery we go to had another store right next to the park so we went for a look through in there.  After, we found a group forming in the park.  Once the music got started we discovered it wasn't a dance class but an exercise class to salsa music.  Kind of a jazzercise class, Mexican style.  We bailed after a short time and headed down to the malecon for a banana split.  Hey we earned it!

Back on board I was exhausted and left Sue to play with her new tool, the internet.  I no sooner got in the sack and it started to pitter patter on deck.  We actually got a bit of rain last night.  The wind generator worked overtime all night long and this morning we are in the middle of the La Paz Waltz…….more later..