We arrived at Los Barilles yesterday after a long morning of hitchhiking. We sat and waited at some trisection between La Paz, Cabo, and San Jose for an hour before getting a ride from a friendly Mexican man driving a hotel van. He told us he was a chef for a fancy hotel in Los Barilles and that he had trained for his red seal in France. He dropped us off at the beach right downtown and wished us luck on our trip.
Saying goodbye to everyone at San Pedrito was a little hard. We had spent so much time together that we all began to feel like a family a little. Saying by to Dale wasn't as hard but you had to admit he was a pretty good guy. He talked a lot but for how much crap I had to listen to he did smoke a lot of weed with us all. In turn we fed him some pretty quality meals so I think it was a fair trade off. Saying goodbye to Samuel and Daniella was a little harder though. Samuel and I had become good friends through our mutual interest in trying to live off the land here though he was far better and much more knowledgeable about it that I was. We all hugged and exchanged emails though and first thing in the morning Jaime and I were on our way back down that dusty road.
I now find myself thinking in Spanish 70% of the time though I don't always understand what it is that I am even thinking. I just repeat sentences or words I have heard before over and over in my head. Jaime is almost fluent which makes me a little jealous so I try my best to learn quickly. I can tell that I am improving though I am now capable of carrying out short conversations at the store. Even when we hitch rides with Mexicans I can understand a great deal of what is said back and forth between the drivers and Jaime. Learning a new language is certainly exciting and I can't wait to keep getting better. I read my Spanish dictionary as often as I can as well to try and remember things out of it. Though the best way I've found so far is to keep listening to everybody around me.
After our first night in Los Barilles we noticed three other towns further down the beach. We decided to walk to the next one each day or two and check them out. Los Barilles was very expensive for such a small Mexican town and I was still waiting on some money back home to arrive. Home is on my mind a lot these day. The tension being around Jaime every day all day is always making me wonder if I am doing the right thing keeping on with this journey. I am certain beyond a doubt that there will never be any romance between us again. She simply cannot commit to anything though I'm not sure when i ever asked or implied to her that I wanted that. I feel bad for her though knowing that some day reality is going to hit her hard and she will have to deal with it. Her freedom is very important to her but she has loans and other things to worry about back home. Her plan to sell jewelery like the Mexicans is a nice dream but it won't pay off her debt and I doubt to many tourists come to Mexico to buy there souvenirs from white girls. She keeps talking about this foolish puppy idea as well. I try to reason with her but she has no interest in listening to anything intelligent if it disagrees with her point of view.
Cleaning our feet has now become a daily ritual. Jaime's cut from the waterfall hike is bad and she has a nasty looking blister on one of her toes. My cuts are all still pretty fresh and I have also developed a blister on the outside bottom of my left foot. We use our hydrogen peroxide sparingly but are out of bandages now.
Mescal us a weird trip. I woke up still feeling drunk with the sun rise. The higher it climbs the more sober I become and I fear that I will be gripped by a hang over soon. It's an odd liquor costing $1.50can for 1L of only 25% alcohol that makes you feel more high than drunk. Sort of like taking a small dose of magic mushrooms with a mickey of bad tequila. You don't hallucinate but your brain begins to function on a different level. Tasks like walking away from the fire to go to the bathroom take on a whole new set of challenges. The stars in the night sky seem to move and then reset themselves and at times it feels like the world around you is moving as well. The whole experience is very surreal but you don't ever feel like you are going to freak out about any of this. It's not something that I would drink on a regular basis however.
Last night while drinking Mescal Jaime and I discussed a lot of things including how we would get to the mainland. She suggested we keep out eyes open for cheap flights to Mexico city and try to make our way east from there. Possibly over to Cuba eventually. That sounded great to me Cuba would be a fantastic way to end my journey. We also thought that trying to work on somebodies boat from La Paz might be a good idea as well. With Christmas approaching in less than 10 days now, we agreed that it would be best spent in La Paz and we needed to do something really fun for it as well.
Today we are going to break camp and hitch to the next town down the beach. Jaime thinks it may be called Aquas Calliente from a map she saw in town. If it indeed is then this could be the place with the hot springs we heard about before. I hope so I could use a bath in some real water.
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