Thursday we headed north towards Todos Santos. Check in at our Airbnb was 3 pm, so we decided to hang out at a bar until then. On Wednesday, we had met a Canadian musician at our hotel, and learned that he would be playing at Shaka's bar in Cerritos on Friday night. Cerritos is about 15 minutes from Todo Santos, and on our way. We had lunch at Shaka's, a classic funky surfer bar, and hung out. We arrived at our Airbnb before 3 pm and moved in. The road is rough, but the place is nice. The house is decorated in Mexican style, with decorative tile; the owner is a silversmith. The house is almost at the top of the hill; the deck has a great view of the town and mountains. Sandi and I are in the upstairs bedroom. We decided to head to town, and had dinner at Miguel's restaurant. After dinner we shopped at El Sol Supermarket.
Friday we headed to town to go shopping. After a couple of stops, we drove and found Tacos y Mariscos El Sinaloense, where we had tacos, margaritas and beer. After lunch, we found Bodegas Lizarraga, with a good selection of vegetables. We bought shrinp and fish out of the back of a truck across the street, and headed back home. We left the house about 5:45 to drive to Shaka's in daylight, and had dinner there.
The music at Shaka's was a blast from the past,, and started at 7 PM, perhaps keeping in mind the age of the audience. Most of the people there were senior citizens, including the musicians. The music was from our youth. Dave Stone, the musician we met in Cabo, is 69 years old, still rocking, playing the keyboard and singing. His guitar player was about the same age. There were people dancing, and Sandi and I got on the dance floor towards the end of the first set. We carefully drove home in the dark.
Saturday, we drove to the Hotel California for lunch. The story is that the Eagles song of the same name refers to this hotel, but the hotel website denies it. The Hotel is a boutique hotel. The magazine is from our local REA, which publishes photos of folks holding their magazine in interesting places.
Sandi and I walked around the town, looking for shoes and scoping out the stores. Sandi bought artisanal cocoa from a tiny shop. There was a kind of tree in one shopping area, with many anonymous wishes on cards hanging from the tree. Sandi and Pam fixed a nice shrimp dinner. We had seen posters advertising a music festival, with a preview performance at La Morena bar; Richard went down to check it out and learn more about the festival.
We discovered that we are exactly on the Tropic of Cancer, which is 23.4363 degrees north of the equator. The upper deck of the house is 23.4368 degrees north, according to my phone. The road is 23.4365, so the tropic of cancer runs through the yard of the house across the street. Our altitude is 163 feet. To define the Tropic of cancer, it is the northernmost lattitude at which the sun is directly overhead, generally on June 20th.
Sunday we went to the noon mass in downtown Todos Santos. It was well attended, with an enthusiastic choir. At the end of mass, the priest explained how the new bishop and the old bishop would share the job for three years, and that there would be a big ceremony in the stadium in La Paz for the ordination of the new bishop. All were encouraged to attend the ordination. We had a tasty lunch at Catrina Cantina, with garlic fish that all agreed was outstanding.
We headed north to the nonprofit which releases sea turtles, Tortugero Las Playitas.. They patrol the beach, gather the eggs, and then incubate them in the sand under a kind of greenhouse or hoop house. The Tropic of Cancer is as far north as the turtles lay their eggs, and some do not hatch here without help. They released the tiny black turtles near the water, and they crawled towards the water until a wave carried them out to sea. This time of year, some turtles hatch every day.
Monday we headed downtown to shop; we found tourist items, expensive clothes, and many beautiful things. The ladies bought T-shirts for grandkids, Richard bought sandals, David bought a hat, and we hit mostly the shops north of the church. The sidewalks were challenging to walk, as the town is not flat, and the sidewalks vary a lot. Lunch was at the restaurant Tre Galline, which is Italian for three hens, and was excellent. We dropped off laundry to pick up Wednesday. The ladies cooked fish for dinner.
Tuesday Sandi and Richard went out to visit shops north of the church. Sandi bought some earrings from a silversmithing shop run by a silversmithing family. Her grandmother appeared in a Mexican Silversmithing book. We chatted with a sculptor who had some very nice work in various media. We had huevos rancheros at Tre Galline. We did some grocery shopping, and then came home to pick up Pam and Dave for our cooking lesson at Hablando Mexicano.
Victoria, the instructor, spoke little English; Richard translated as required. She started with ceviche made with marlin that her father had caught. It takes lots of lemons to make ceviche. We had poblano chiles sliced in thin strips, cooked in light cream, with blue corn tortillas mixed and flattened by hand. She cooked over a hardwood fire. We all had a good time, and the food was excellent.
Wednesday we went to Cerritos Beach Club for lunch. Manuel, our waiter, brought a chalkboard to our table with the menu written on it. We enjoyed being next to the water. We drove through Pescadero, which had a commercial district and modest houses. Pescadero is on the east side of the main road, the Carretera Transpenninsular.
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