If you haven’t read them yet, go back and visit Part 6, Part 5, Part 4, Part 3, Part 2 y Part 1 of this series about La Paz, Mexico.
The Uber pulled away. On one side of me was the sea and the city’s monument to the Mexican revolution and Constitution. Across the street, on the other side, was the central bus station at which I’d arrived in La Paz, a very eventful three and a half days ago.
I clearly remembered passing the office of Eco Baja Tours in my walk through downtown two days ago, but I didn’t remember exactly where it was, so I fired up Google Maps. It turned out my destination was shockingly close. In fact, as I took my first steps up Calle Cinqo de Mayo, I saw the letters in big type atop a small shopfront built into the very side of the main bus terminal building itself!
It was just after 9 a.m. on Saturday. The glass door opened to the pull of my arm. Inside sat a mustachioed man at a desk. There was no one else in the office. It was, as I’d suspected, a good time to come.
“Hola,” I said. “Do you speak English?”
“Yes,” he said. “How can I help you?”
I explained my situation of “not feeling well”—not really true anymore, but he certainly didn’t want to hear a complicated story—and needing to leave La Paz a day and a half early. I told him I’d bought a new plane ticket out and simply needed to reconfigure my shuttle ride, which I believed I’d already paid for, to get me to the Cabo airport in time to go through security and get on the plane.
“I have emails from the shuttle company. From your company, I guess, although I have two other company names, as well—All the same company, apparently—in my saved emails.”
I showed him one on my phone.
“Can you please send me those emails?” He wrote down his email address and I forwarded the emails to him. Once he had my booking number and reservation up on the screen, he peered at the email a moment, then dialled a number on his phone. He talked with someone for a little while in Spanish and hung up.”
“We can’t find your return shuttle reservation,” he said.
“That’s OK. I think I did make one, but I can deal with that later. Let me just make a new one. I need to be at the airport for a 5:16 p.m. flight tomorrow.
“That we can do,” he said. “One more moment.” He phoned the airport again, spoke in Spanish, and once again hung up and looked at me.
“We have only one shuttle available. Tomorrow morning. At 10 o’clock.”
“That’s fine,” I said, mentally calculating the arrival time. “I don’t mind waiting a few hours for my flight.”
“All right. That will be 500 pesos.”
I handed him my Visa card. In another couple of minutes, he gave me my receipt and my ticket. I thanked him profusely for helping me. He was just doing his job, but in doing it, he’d provided the final link for my security.
When I let myself out of the air-conditioned office and back into the sun, I felt completely secure. I was ready to enjoymy final full day in La Paz.
Second visit to the art museum
On my previous morning foray downtown, before my sick day, I’d asked an American I’d met up the hill about air-conditioned cafés. He’d walked me to a crowded, upscale one that could have been in my hometown in the States, except for the buzz of voices en Espanol.
Now, with the heat coming on and the whole day to enjoy, I wanted to start there, sipping a coffee while reading and writing for an hour or two in a cool place. Then I planned to pay a second visit to the art museum. A new exhibit had been in the process of installation in a front room during my previous visit. The opening had been Friday—yesterday—at 5 p.m., just when I was recovering from my stomach bug.
I did want to see the new exhibit. Everything about the museum seemed so thoughtful and expertly curated. Another plus, of course, was the excellent air conditioning.
After that, I intended to visit the other renowned local museum I’d heard about, the Museum of Anthropology. Then I’d do my best to finally find a good retail food store and get some fruit, nuts and yogurt for the evening; call another Uber to get me back to the hotel; and spend my last night in town pleasantly in my room, in activities that might even include sleep!
Two days before, I’d taken a photo of the sign in front of the café I was looking for so I’d have its name for future reference. After a couple of tries, I got the right spelling (“Docecuarenta”), typed it into Google Maps and found it two or three blocks up the hill. It was crowded, as it had been two days earlier. There were no free tables, but I found a space with a chair at a counter in front of the food prep area. I ordered a café Americano, and spent an enjoyable half-hour sitting there before a barista told me the table behind me had become available, so I moved there.
Leaving after another hour, I felt satisfied to have read several chapters of a wonderful book I’d brought along about improvisation in art, music and life. I walked the block to the art museum, pulled back the big door, and entered. The museum was deserted except for the workers, but its galleries were open. I checked my backpack and hat, as I’d done the first time, and went into the front room to see the new exhibit.
Like the others, it had been thoughtfully put together. It took awhile for me to realize that these works weren’t all by the same artist, but rather, by members of a collective. Many of the paintings were interesting amalgams of the body of an animal and some kind of machinery or habitation. For example, one painting showed a giant hermit crab whose home was not a shell, but a section of cactus with a neat little wood-framed circular glass window built into it.
My favourite painting in this exhibit was a moving portrait of a woman with two heads upon her neck, conjoined in a manner that appeared visionary rather than freakish. One head shows her in the bloom of youthful beauty; the other, as a wise crone. Her hands, at chest level, are joined together in a gesture of wholeness.
Another painting I loved depicted many different species of animals that are generally thought of as gentle, all incorporated as parts of two feathery, colourful angel-like wings. The painting’s title: “Nosostros Callejues” (“We Allies”).
When I came out of the exhibit room, it was easier to talk to the museum docents than it had been on my earlier visit, when they’d had many more visitors to serve. I asked the young woman at the desk, “Are you an artist?
“I’m a photographer,” she said.
“Has your work been exhibited here?”
“I had one piece in an exhibit last year, and another one will be part of the next exhibit, next month.”
“Ah! Congratulations!” I said.
I told her a story I love to share, about the only time I’d actually had one of my own paintings in an art museum, as opposed to a gallery. It had been in a small city, 90 miles (about 145 kilometres) or so from where some friends and I lived and showed our work in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. One Sunday, several of us from the gallery drove up to Florence to see our work.
I searched intently for my piece. Finally, entering a small gallery, I saw it! And not only that: Two men stood directly in front of my painting. One of them (I could scarcely believe my ears) was improvising a little lecture to enlighten the other about the virtues of my piece! It had been such an intimate moment, overhearing them.
“Imagine,” I added to the young lady. “He was saying nice things about my painting! I’m glad I didn’t overhear him telling someone how terrible it was!”
We both laughed.
I had a little intuition to show her one of my paintings, and realized there was one right on my phone screen as the wallpaper. It showed two men kissing, with a kind of golden aura around their faces. I had intended them to represent Meher Baba and myself.
“He’s kissing God,” I told my friend.
“Si, si,” she said. “Yes, I get it!”
I went into the museum shop. Here, too, the attendant was alone.
“You have some nice things here,” I said to her, surveying the room. “I think I’ll look for something to take home to my wife.”
Immediately, straight ahead of me, I saw the perfect present to bring back—a very colourfully painted wooden heart with wings. It was almost like the Sufi emblem of the group that Barbara had belonged to for so many years.
I exited the museum with my gift safely in my backpack. Once again, I felt “filled” after a satisfying visit. Pulling out my phone, I clicked the Google Maps icon, and in the “destination” space, typed in “Anthropology Museum, La Paz, Mexico.” It was a mere 10 minutes further down the same street, Calle Cinqo de Mayo. I started walking, enjoying the little perk of seeing these blocks for the first time.
It was very, very hot now. I said out loud, not needing to act “normal” because no one else was around, “Baba, I don’t want to have heatstroke! I think I can make this. But I’m not going to do any extra walking.” I took a moment, passing under a shade tree, to stop and look again at Google. Only three short blocks to go.
The Regional Museum of Anthropology
Finally, there it was. A nice exterior. Two modern buildings in a little plaza with desert plants. In the museum, two young female docents helped me to get oriented and checked my backpack for me.
The museum was modern, like a couple of American anthropology and natural history museums I’ve been to. It told the story of humankind in pictures, three-dimensional dioramas and explanatory placards. The explanations were all in Spanish, but if you held your phone up to a QR Code on the wall and clicked the link that came up, a page with an English translation would appear on your phone.
The life being shown was that which had developed in Baja California. It included ancient cave paintings quite similar to the ones in France and other stories I’d heard at other museums. For the next hour and a half, I toured the three levels of the museum. The dioramas were very evocative of the life anthropologists believe went on thousands of years ago in this part of the world, in the midst of this environment, which long ago became as harsh as It is today.
One diorama called “Star Worshippers” reached out powerfully to my imagination. These people lived here, as well as in other parts of the world. I’d heard a song about the star worshippers many years ago at a folk music café, and had been fascinated by the idea.
I like to go to these museums. It’s an opportunity to pay my dues to being human and ponder the human story. Again, as in past visits to such places, I asked myself, “What is mi connection with these cave people, these wanderers, hunters and gatherers who painted vivid scenes on cave walls, who had some kind of shamanic religion and related to the mighty cosmos and all the dangers thereof, with much less protection than you or I have? And yet, in the final analysis, they’re our brothers and sisters!
As in the past, however, in my attempt to make the connection—how did we get from there a aquí.?—I felt vast gaps in my understanding. It occurs to me to write “them” (us, in long-ago incarnations) a letter expressing my curiosity.
Delectable fruit and cream
After leaving the museum, I was back outside in the 3 p.m. heat at the height of the day. I walked a bit further from the bay to look a food store, on the advice of one of the museum docents. I didn’t dare risk another restaurant on my last evening.
I was reading in my news feed that some parts of the world are even hotter than this place. Iran has recorded 152 degrees Fahrenheit (about 67 degrees Celsius). In Phoenix, Arizona, the asphalt streets are around 150 degrees Fahrenheit (approximately 66 degrees Celsius) in the middle of the day. I can’t imagine anything much hotter than La Paz. The humidity being nearly always around 90 percent adds to the perception of a near inferno. What is the world coming to? The question’s on everyone’s mind.
After a mistaken entry to a big store that turned out to be Ace Hardware, I took the salesman’s advice and looked across the street. There it was! It wasn’t a big supermarket, but an open-air produce stand under the delightful sign: FRUTERIA LA ABUNDANCIA.
Like a child in a candy store, I put everything I wanted in one of the big tubs I’d taken from a tall stack of them, paid and waited while the cashier bagged my purchases. The night ahead promised papaya, mango, bananas, guyabana, an apple and a big bag of peanuts in their shells. The stand didn’t have any yogurt, but feeling triumphant already, I started marching toward an OXXO store on the corner, which I expected would have some.
Going there would also be a way to stay out of the heat a little while longer. “Yogurt?” I inquired of the girl at the counter upon entering, but she just looked baffled. A search of the 7-Eleven-like shelves, though, produced a box of something called “Crema Mexicana," which was apparently something like sour cream, but richer and not really sour. Sounded like just what I needed!
I clicked my phone’s Uber app and requested a ride back to the hotel. In less than a minute, a driver was on his way, and in less than five, I was in the air-conditioned car and out of the heat for the duration of my La Paz sojourn, if you exclude the short walk from the Uber to the hotel room.
The driver didn’t speak any English, so I fired up Google Translate and told him what I wanted him to hear: “Las conductores de Uber salvan vidas.” Uber drivers save lives. He smiled like he thought I was joking, so I added, “En realidad! Los ancianos morirían con este calor sin ti”. Really! Elderly people could die in this heat without you.
The night passed with more pleasure than the previous two. None of the fruit led to any discomfort; much of it was delicious; and the Crema Mexicana was, taste-wise, more enjoyable than sour cream o yogurt! The peanuts were too small to make it worth the trouble to keep cracking them open, and I ended up leaving more than half.
Final breakfast (with Ricardo)
At 7 a.m., after an uncertain amount of sleep (but I think more than none), I rose with enthusiasm, eager to get on with it. My last shower, all the details of packing. Dressing. Logging in on the laptop for the last time to read and respond.
Again, I was the first one at breakfast, rolling my travel bag down the stairs with me to the table. The smiling first cook from the other day was back again. I emptied all my Mexican change into her tip jar. In the room, I’d also left 200 pesos for the cleaning lady in the envelope the hotel had provided.
I exulted in the breakfast and the atmosphere for my final time. This timeless time, actually, for the atmosphere had that capacity Art has, to lift one out of time.
The hotel owner, Ricardo, happened by and we had a final conversation. I asked him a few questions and came away respecting him even more than I already had. Physically, he reminded me of Eruch Jessawala, the Indian disciple of Meher Baba whom many people I know felt was, for lack of a better way to say it, “the most together person” they’d ever met.
I let Ricardo know how much I admired his hotel, how I considered it a work of art. He’d pieced it together from scratch 20 years before, he told me. He also shared a little more about the line of work for which the hotel had started as a way-station: his wilderness outfitting and expedition company, the one whose office was also on the premises, and whose journeys were the subject of an enormous mural in the hotel entrance courtyard adjacent to this poolside one. I’d been aware of the outfitting company, but had previously thought it just rented space or something.
“I’m a busy, busy man seven months a year,” Ricardo told me. “I can’t keep going like that all the time, so I take these five months to relax. But I’m still quite busy, working on the hotel.” Ricardo confirmed that he and his wife lived at the house adjacent, and much of their extended family helped run the place.
From the breakfast table I phoned Uber, and once again, the driver met me just outside the grounds in less than five minutes. Ten minutes after that, I disembarked at the bus station downtown, an hour before my shuttle to the Cabo airport.
GO TO PART EIGHT (FINAL INSTALLMENT): IMPEDIMENTS FACED: A safe return home from La Paz, Mexico
imagen 1: Wikimedia Commons; all other images: Max Reif
