Playa Tecolote, La Paz
We are happy campers as the nights are much cooler here (thanks to an almost constant breeze which picks up to a full gusting wind part of every night).We spent much of saturday looking for a place to watch the duck game. The main sports bar in town, Tailhunter thinks the game will be on so we head there to watch the end of the USC game in anticipation but it ends up not being able to be had- meaning we watch most of the game via the web, but miss the ending trying to keep to our "no driving after dark" rule. We had talked about having season tickets this year. That would have been awesome, but watching with an ocean backdrop doesn't suck either… We race out of town (hoping for a better 4th quarter than what we saw of the 3rd) and pull back into our beach and under our palapa just after dark- and promise to do an even better job of following our own rule.
Oddly, several more people pull in after us. While mostly deserted during the day, a few locals always show up after work to enjoy the beach and a few more show up at dark to party, listen to music and either sleep in the sand under a palapa or pull out in the middle of the night.
Sunday sees a completely different scene at playa Tecolote as the local families start rolling in early and by noon the place is packed. 100s of families fill the beach and hardly a space is left without a vehicle squeezed in between palapas and other cars. This is clearly what the local family does on sundays and people of all ages are playing in the water, blasting the tunes and a few even brought along ATVs and jet skis. Our sleepy little beach has been overrun and with the crowds come the vendors selling everything from hats and dresses to mango and popsicles. Quite a fun day of people-watching and hanging out with the locals as we are clearly the only gringos on the beach. Only sad moment was when a tiny puffer washed up onshore in front of our palapa…sell puffed from whatever he endured that likely scared him to death.
Our jumper cables get daily use here as there's always someone who played the radio a bit too long without starting the engine to recharge. Around sunset the cars start pulling out and soon we are back to only a handful of people (apparently most have a similar rule about driving after dark). We enjoy a pesto pasta and some cribbage and fall asleep listening to the last car's romantic mexican tunes.
In the morning our beach is once again deserted, but full of trash as evidence to yesterday's festivities. We spend the morning picking up a few bags of trash slowly making it way towards the water and then chill on our totally private beach. The creative urge has started to nibble. I've begun sketching a bit and playing with some digital ideas…we'll see how that goes in the days ahead. Im rusty at best- but it feels good to be at least a bit creative.
As i write this jen is preparing crab enchiladas for the grill and we are out of both water and tequila. Tomorrow we will head into LaPaz for staples and another fish taco. After that (depending on surf report) we either head back to the pacific and Todos Santos or further down down this side to try our hand at some other beaches. We know we will be coming back to LaPaz for the ferry to the mainland, so it's not to tough to leave knowing that at least one more night will be spent at Tecolote. Unless another beach comes with less flies…its hard to imagine it getting much better than this.
