Day of New Year's Eve

We wake up in the morning to a gorgeous sunrise. It's really cool, you turn your head one way to watch the sun set, sleep, then turn it the other way to see the sun rise again. Both are equally spectacular. I'm cuddling my sleeping bag while Alex makes coffee. Hmmm, coffee. Nothing like a cofee in your sleeping bag on the beach under a palapa. We have some empenadas de datil that we had bought in san ignacio for breakfast, too. So Good!

We slowly pack up, enjoying the morning and not really wanting to leave, and then, careful what you wish for, the KLR has a dead battery??? and won't start. When I hit the button, nothing happens. Immediately a whole diagnosis process starts unspooling in my brain. charging system? I have a spare regulator but no alternator with me. how do you say donde esta el most cerca alternadore rewind place around here? or maybe the battery took a crap? how far down are my tools buried? or did i leave the lights on? but since i don't lock my bike usually this seems unlikely.

Anyway, starting with the easiest thing to do since I really don't want to get the tools out, we rope the boys of the family neighboring into push starting, to no avail in the (albeit hard packed) sand, until the tall dutch guy from last night gives a hand, and with combined forces the KLR starts and runs. I ask them if the front light is getting brighter, and there is some disagreement in the family camp, but I'm going with what the lady of the palapa says, namely that the head light is indeed getting brighter when I rev the bike, so it looks like the battery is dead but the bike is charging, which means I won't get stuck out in the desert. Phew!

So we make our way out to the paved road again, me going fast to charge the battery so when we have to stop and switch off the bikes at the border from Baja California Sur to Baja California Norte, the bike starts right up. I'm guessing what happened is that when Alex took my key out of the ignition so the bike won't get stolen, she must have turned it to the park position where the tail light stays on, and in our drunkenly happy state we didn't see it when we got back from dinner and it drained the battery.

We skip Guerrero Negro although that is where I had the bestest seafood cocktail ever last time I was there because I am anxious to get to the Bay of LA to find a good hotel before it gets all booked up for New Years. For the same reason we also skip the short-cut-dirt-road-with-mision that was recommended to us by a Mexican KTM rider that we talk to at the gas station. He is traveling with 2 friends two-up on a K-bike. He just spend a day doing the 1 hour short cut he recommends because he ran a flat, which reminds me that although I have the tubes, skills and tools to fix a flat, we don't have a pump anymore since Pige left, which is another reason to stay on pavement for now until we hook up with Jim and John who do have a pump.

It is extremely windy again going there, but at this point I am almost getting used to it, but just almost. It still scares the living bejesus out of me when the front wheel seems to sidestep a half foot or so from the wind gusts.

When we get to Bahia de Los Angeles we are a little disappointed because although everybody was praising the beauty of this town it looks pretty dismal and abandoned this time of year. At first we try the beaches up north, but the restaurants are going to be closed and we would like to have a nice lobster dinner for New Year's Eve. In town most hotels are booked, but eventually we find Guillermo's, a hotel right by the beach that also serves dinner. Awesome!

We lock up Alex's bike to the front gate at the road so Jim and John can find us if and we settle in the room, looking forward to showers. But the water doesn't get hot. Could this be the one time we forgot to ask if the rooms have hot water, and then they don't? Not unusual in Mexico, but it hasn't happened so far.

After several attempts to keep the boiler lit over the next couple of hours we make the owners give us another room where the shower actually works. By this time Jim and John have actually arrived. They are totally beat because what they had calculated with a casual glance to be 100 miles on dirt turned out to be 170 miles in the dirt and they got lost at one point on top of it, due to inadequate (speak non-existing) signage at the various intersections. In the end they were on reserve both with gas and personally but rolled into town at sunset. They had already pictured a cold night out in the middle of the desert.

We all finally get to take showers one after another and then make appearance one after another in the bar to drink margaritas. Eventually we sit down to the best lobster dinner. According to Jim, better than Mama Espinosas. That's saying something!

Full bellied and ready to party, Alex, Jim and I go next door to another hotel where they have a big baile for New Year's. John is just too beat and doesn't care much for New Years and stays at the hotel.

When we get there they are about to do a pinada for the kids. It is really fun to watch the two old guys doing it, the way the guy working the pinada seems to be having more fun than the kids and the way the guy handling the kids choose who is next. He doesn't take the loud kids, but the little and the shy ones, and when their turn is up he snatches the stick and the kid by wrapping them both in his arms and lifting them up and away. He does it with so much kindness and love it's a beauty to watch.

All the kids are really well behaved sitting in the chairs waiting their turn, until one kid hits the pinada real good and it rains candy. That's when the dormant spirits erupt and the kids rush the pinada like a tidal wave to gather as much candy as fits in their hands, eat it on the very spot as fast as they can and then stuff their pockets for later until they can't take no more.

It is still early and there are more and more people coming to the dance. Eventually the band starts and the dancing commences. Alex dances with an American that has lived here for a long time and I dance with Jim. The music is very fast so after a while we take to watching the couples to figure out how they do it. There is really only one step but you have to dance really close and be a unit with your partner and it's really fast. After a few songs we are getting a handle on the whole thing. It's really fun and I wish we all weren't so tired.

At around 11 Jim is falling asleep which is no wonder after 170 miles of dirt so he goes to bed, and Alex and I stay at the party. We just have to know what happens at midnight. We are hoping for fire works like in Germany and there were a few fire works earlier that night.

We take a break from dancing and go to the beach to have a beer there and look at the water and go back just before 12 o'clock. But when midnight rolls around all they do is a little cheer to el Ano Nuevo and that's that. People keep on dancing and having fun, but we are definitely ready for bed, so we call it a night and go back to the hotel.

Feliz Ano Nuevo, Happy New Year, Froehliches Neues Jahr!

It's interesting how different people celebrate the new year, and now I know how the Mexicans, the Germans, and the Americans do it. I'm going to have to think about whose customs I'm going to sample next year.

So for this year, I wish everybody a great year, full of beauty and kindness, love and prosperity, and, if you have any, that you may be able to keep your New Year's resolutions...