Dedication: To the brave and resilient people of La Paz.
It’s a morning in mid-July in our home in Walnut Creek, California, across the bay from San Francisco and a few miles inland. I got back last night from an extraordinary journey to La Paz, Mexico in southern Baja California.
It’s good to be home. I appreciate this place, the base for the life my wife Barbara and I have made together for the past 20 years of our 25-year relationship.
It’s a little after 8 a.m. and already hot outside—part of a heat wave that includes much of the U.S. and a lot of other countries. Global warming, no doubt. With a flick of my wrist, though, the magic of air conditioning envelops me as I drink my coffee, review what has appeared overnight on my PC and begin this project of setting down, word by word, the story of the ordeal I’ve just been through.
It became “a vacation in Hell,” and in the end, I feel I’ve had just the vacation I’d wanted, too, full of joy, beauty and pleasure! A mind-boggling balance between the two somehow emerged, leaving me with no regret whatsoever—even that I’d ended up cutting the trip short by a day and a half—and with a deep sense of awe.
My summer vacation plans took shape in the couple of months before I left. I’d originally intended to go to India this summer: to Meher Baba’s Samadhi (tomb) near Ahmednagar in Maharashtra state, where I’ve been six times before. I’d been hoping to stop off on the way in Turkey, to see Istanbul and visit the Baba devotees there.
In January, though, came a diagnosis that I’d developed osteoarthritis in both hands. Though I’ve since learned of treatments (especially turmeric) that have brought considerable relief, at that point, the condition was bothering me quite a bit. This seemed to counter-indicate a trip all the way across the world. I’d never realized that in some way, I “see with my hands.” I felt blind in some way, until, after experimenting with several different treatments for several months, the turmeric and Boswellia (a form of frankincense) began to relieve me quite a bit.
During my period of adjustment, I decided to go someplace a lot closer, and do a “semi-retreat.” I’ve done that sort of thing on other vacations. This, for me, involves walking and exploring a lot, reading and writing in cafes, taking photos of sights I find lovely or interesting enough to share, going to museums, and engaging in meditative activities in my room during early morning and nighttime hours.
I’d considered a Mexico vacation last year, and had decided on La Paz, the choice of which my friend Dan Sandford, who’d grown up in Mexico, heartily approved. Then, as my trip got closer, United Airlines sent me a pre-flight questionnaire that asked for, among other things, my passport number. I thought to myself, “What? You need a passport to go to Mexico now?”
Mine had expired in 2020. I decided to redirect my flight to Hilo, Hawaii, on the Big Island—the only place left in the U.S. that I really longed to visit and hadn’t been to before. I’d been to Kaui and Oahu many years ago, but Hilo and the island of Hawaii, with its volcanoes, jungles and vastness, fascinated me. I rerouted my ticket there and had a five-day vacation at a B&B, along with a rental car for exploring the island. It was so wonderful that I don’t even have words to describe it.
“What about La Paz?”
Now it was a year later, and again, my first travel idea had fallen through. A thought whispered, “What about La Paz this year?”
The city was reputed to be hot in the summer, but when I checked the Weather Channel’s page for “La Paz, Mexico”—being sure not to confuse it with La Paz, Bolivia—I had a very pleasant surprise! The high temperature listed for each day of the next two weeks was 75 degrees Fahrenheit (about 24 degrees Celsius). Thunderstorms were predicted daily, but only in the afternoon. The charming photo I’d found of the La Paz oceanfront malecon (or boardwalk), plus good weather, seemed to be a great combination.
Online, I discovered a lovely spice-coloured boutique hotel named Posada LunaSol. Looking at photos of the Mexican folk-decor of its rooms and grounds, I decided I needed to be there! I made my reservations. With a month to go, I was impatient to be on the way.
A mistake—and an existential decision
The morning of July 11, around 24 hours before I was scheduled to leave for my six-day vacation in La Paz, I came downstairs to find my wife Barbara looking dour. She picked up her phone and said, “Honey, I found something I don’t think you’re going to like much!” She showed me the phone. It displayed a weather screen for “La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico.”
The numbers it showed weren’t the ones I’d been monitoring daily for the past two or three weeks! Staring at me were black and red notations of days—every day—with peak temperatures from the high 90s to 101! The humidity was generally around 90 percent all the time, but there wasn’t much of a chance of rain: a paltry 40 percent chance that only lasted a little while, every few days. I felt horrified.
“Do you still want to go?” Barbara asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Let me make sure that’s right!”
It sure looked right, I had to admit as I went into my office and fired up the Weather Channel site that I’d fixed so La Paz came up first. I read the heading of the page: “La Paz, Mexico, Mexico.” Why two Mexicos?
I did a search of the channel for “La Paz, Mexico, Baja California Sur.” Sure enough, the statistics that came up were identical to what Barbara had shown me. The La Paz whose weather I’d been keeping track of and projecting my desires onto, imagining myself walking along the malecon, the beautiful oceanfront boardwalk, as it appeared in photos I’d seen—was apparently a small city or town in the state named Mexico that included and surrounded Mexico City. Hence, the two Mexicos. It took quite a while to even locate that one on Google Maps.
“Yep,” I said to Barbara back in the kitchen. “You’re right. I’m glad to have a little advance notice of this. Now I have to decide what to do!”
I walked back into my office, the same one in which I’m typing this now, and closed the door. I began writing what I call an “inner letter” to my spiritual guide, Meher Baba, who lived in India from 1894 until 1969, and whom I’ve done my best to follow since I first encountered him as a mighty force of Love flowing from a photo a friend had back in 1971. He was silent, though extremely active, for the last 43.5 years of his life on Earth, and said he was the Avatar, which means the World Messenger of our age. If you want to know more about him, you can find some good biographies online.
The gist of today’s inner letter was:
Dearest BABA, As I’ve told You, I have plans to fly to La Paz, Mexico tomorrow. Barbara just discovered that I’ve been monitoring the daily weather of the wrong La Paz … and that the one I’m going to is very hot!
I’ve done a lot of planning for this trip, Baba, and I don’t see a way, at this juncture, to plan a trip with a different destination. I feel that my essential need this week is to go somewhere where I see new sights, walk streets that are a brand new pattern for me, and so on.
I feel, BABA, that given all of that, I should go to La Paz as planned. I can walk in the mornings, before it gets so hot, and go to air-conditioned cafes to read and write. I think it’s workable, BABA.
Then I imagined a reply, which I occasionally do, just to try out what this “pen-pal” might respond, without feeling I’m necessarily channelling Baba. I wrote, just to see how it felt, “Baba is pleased that I’m still going to La Paz,” and then also trying out the flow of my cursive on the inverse: “Baba is not pleased if I still go to La Paz.” I felt more energy in the positive statement.
It may have been my own enthusiasm, but I have no absolute way of contacting my Guide. I test out my intuition and try to follow what seems like the truth of the energy. Meher Baba says to follow your conscience in the final analysis, anyway. Going on my trip did indeed feel like the most important value at hand.
I went back to the kitchen again and told Barbara, “I decided I’m going to go. It’s an existential moment. I feel my primary need is to go, and that everything will work out.” She understood exactly how and why I felt that way, and supported my decision, as she so often does.
Author’s note on Meher Baba
Meher Baba (whose name translates as “Compassionate Father”), my spiritual Guide for many years now, once said, “Make Me your constant companion.” Because I try to do that, this remarkable figure from recent spiritual history comes into my Mexico story at several points.
Meher Baba lived in India from 1894 until 1969. He was silent from 1925 on, communicating with an alphabet board and then abandoning that in the mid-‘50s. He visited the United States, Europe and Australia several times, and now has many devotees around the world.
The Wikipedia article and many other online resources provide excellent biographical information. I tell the story of how my own connection with Meher Baba came about in this article that appeared in The Mindful Word several years ago: COMING TO BABA: My 43-year Romance with Meher Baba.
………
On my way
The next morning, we arose at 4 a.m., and at a couple of minutes before 5, Barbara dropped me off at our town’s rapid transit station so I could catch the first train of the day in order to get through security and check my bag in plenty of time for the 8:30 a.m. flight.
There were no delays whatsoever on the BART train or at San Francisco International Airport. Checking my bag took less than 10 minutes, security only around 20. I got to the gate before 7:30 and read until boarding. The plane took off on time, and I was on the way to whatever adventure life had in store.
Part two of this story is now available: SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM: First Day in La Paz.
images: Max Reif
