Tiny hotel rooms, surfing the net, and surprising the fishermen in Loreto.

(From notes taken on Monday, January 12th.)

After two nights of interrupted sleep in Hotel Junipero (the first night being church bells, the second night being a gaggle of chatty senoras talking outside our room at 5 in the morning), we moved to the Motel Palmas Altas in a quieter, cheaper, part of town. For a room that cost less than $20 we weren’t expecting much, but the comically small bathroom kept us laughing for hours, so I suppose we got our money’s worth out of it.

When you’re sitting on the toilet, your knees practically touch the door and your elbows brush the wall on the right and the shower door or the left. The door won’t stay closed without assistance. I didn’t brave the shower, but according to Rob it had plenty of hot water and was quite nice.

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The bus, we’ve found out, is not our ideal form of travel. But what else is there? Rent a car? Hitch hike? Fly?

After talking with a couple of Canadians in a coffee shop, Rob got the idea that we could try to go from Loreto to Mulege by boat. We went down to the harbor where the fantastic gentlemen of Eco-Union Tours, a cooperative tour company, debated amongst themselves what the price for a trip to Mulege might be. Apparently no one had ever asked them to go to Mulege before, and they were laughing, calling over more and more guys to discuss. From the looks of them, they were difficult men to surprise, so we felt accomplished.

Alejandro, the tour co-op operator, finally found us a captain willing to take us for $300 American—a bit out of our price range. There had been a pretty strong wind coming from the north for the past few days, so the going would be tough and probably take about 6 hours.

In the end we decided instead to get our boat kicks by going on a tour out to Coronado Island to see the sea lions and romp on our own private beach. It was scheduled for the next day (Tuesday the 13th). Unfortunately we weren’t able to go because of the wind, but we promised we’d spread the word.

Hey, everybody! Check out Eco-Union Tours in Loreto! These guys rock.

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Interneting has been difficult in Loreto, as the internet café we hit up twice had an abysmally slow connection. After a frustrating few attempts to upload Rob’s photos we all but gave up and went back to our doll-sized hotel room to sulk.

The coffee shop we’d gone to earlier in the day (the one containing the Canadians) promised wireless, and so eventually with renewed dedication we struck out for it, laptop in hand, stopping in front of the nicer-looking homes to search for signals.

We finally caught one near the waterfront and spent the next twenty minutes or so standing out in front of some guy’s house, alternately holding the laptop and uploading/typing. Thanks, unknown Mexican dude! We totally owe you.

To the rest of the world—keep your signals free! Think of the poor frustrated travelers just needing to get in contact with their families!

In peace and freedom of wireless,
Jessie