Turns out La Paz is a pretty happening spot on the wknd. Place was crawling with ppl and dance tunes were pumping out every door of each colorful bar/club/discoteca. We decided to take it easy knowing we had a plan and it was business time tomorrow. But on the way back to the hotel a well spoken server sucked us in with his irresistible offer of 6 cervezas for 120 pesos. A quick check of our times tables and we couldn’t afford not to.

After the bucket, we decided to be responsible and head back to our room. While working on last nights post we checked the ferry schedule. Where before there was a ferry set to go on Sunday around 2pm, now it said NaN. A quick weather check explained: Class 4 Hurricane heading straight at Cabo and La Paz. Damn. We had a secret plan of bombing it to La Paz, taking the ferry across on Sunday, landing in Mazatlan, and cruising straight to Guadalajara for Mexican Independence day on Tuesday. Sounds bueno, no? Alas, the weather did not permit and we were stuck in La Paz. This lead to another late night brainstorming session.

With the hurricane warning came a perfect excuse to sleep in as the pressure of business time was dashed by an inevitable need to stay put.  Our car was in a locked-down lot, but Luis – the parking attendant the previous night – told us to call him to break it free.  Attempts to call from the hotel phone were unsuccessful… just a lot of dead phone noise.  Asked the hotel staff for ayuda pequena… They called Luis for us, and he told them to tell us to ask for Mario at Tony’s Bar (this was all in Espanol)… Mario could set us free.  We found Mario, but before getting El Burro Peligroso released, we had to navigate a Spanish conversation that culminated in him not being able to lock the gate from the inside – he would let us out, but we had to lock the gate behind us.

We shot out to the ferry terminal to figure out what we needed to nab a ride to Mazatlan anyways. Turns out the ferry terminal was closed but the cute girl at B.C.S. Ferries let us know that we needed a vehicle permit to bring our car into Mexico, we still needed our tourist cards (we are illegally hanging out here at the moment), and then we can get our tickets to board the ferry. Since this was a job for tomorrow, we headed back into town for another problem solving session.

On the way past a neighboring restaurant, our server from last night introduced us to a guy named Rainbow. Apparently he came to town just to enjoy the hurricane. He’s well known in the area and he appears when there is a storm and stands out on the boardwalk, taking in the whole experience. Our server likened him to some Helen Hunt storm chaser type. Rainbow looked like he was straight out of the carving down at Peggy’s Cove, with the most Sou’ Wester of Mexican hats and a long, ZZ top-ish beard and sideburns combo. He said the wind would be bad, but the water would most likely only slightly come up over the beach and onto the main road. I’m no expert. We’ll see what happens.

We’re trying to keep the car fairly low-profile until we’re past the Danger Zone of sticking out as gringos, but we did add one piece of flare, adjacent to the shart zone:

While brainstorming and problem solving we discussed a few strange things we’ve noticed down here.  “Mercado” is Espanol for market, so “supermercado” is clearly supermarket.  They then abbreviated this to “Super”.  But then Mini-marts aren’t called “mini-mercados”… They’re “mini-supers”. Evobreviation. The soundtrack of our contemplative session was the wonderful DJ Cortez, whose catchphrase – announced between songs – was “keeping you ripe and wet”.  The lyrics – if not the beats – were reminiscent of the Mongol Rally soundtrack of legend, XXX Hip Hop.

While sitting on the outdoor patio of Fritz’s, the atmosphere darkened, dark clouds quickly rolled in, the wind picked up whipping the palms, and it started to rain slightly. An ominous air descended and we could feel a shift in everything around us. There was an agitated urgency. Bars started packing up their umbrellas, signs and outdoor tables. Some places were putting masking tape X’s across their windows and doors to add some measure of reinforcement. On the strip, the power started to flicker. The hurricane was coming. The only person unfazed was Rainbow.