This Road Scholar trip is a series of one and two night stays, and it’s doing Ron in. Our travel route is littered with items of clothing he keeps leaving behind because we are unpacking and packing so quickly. Our extremely modest packing style (well, except for the Marshall’s bag containing the $500 of Patagonia fleece) dictates that we do a lot of laundry in the sink. And this works just fine on our Europe trips where we have 3 and 4 night stays. But even Ron’s special quick dry travel underwear is not working out, and Ron, ever-creative, has taken to this attractive drying method:
Loreto is my favorite city so far – on the bay of California. It’s the site of the first mission on the Baja California peninsula, established in 1697:
The west coast of North America is littered with these missions, but Loreto was the start of it all – almost 150 years of Jesuit, Franciscans and Dominicans coming over to “civilize” (read: Christianize) the indigenous people here and strengthen the Spanish footprint. The Jesuits focused on Baja California, building 18 missions in 70 years and, in doing so, brought in measles, smallpox, the plague and typhus. Transported novel illnesses killed about 45,000 of the 50,000 indigenous citizens.
Setting aside the problem of the colonization, Loreto makes for nice strolling. It’s a really different experience than our Europe marathon trips, where we can cover 2 or 3 museums in a day, wandering into cathedrals as we walk. This part of Mexico demands a certain languor/interest in sea kayaking and dust that I’m not sure I have as a traveler, but I will nonetheless share some of our Loreto cultural highlights.
One thing we really liked was the garbage cans:
I was also taken with this emergency sign at our hotel, with 9 contradictory steps for what to do in a fire, but no directive to fight the fire. (Compare to the 6-step instructions for the earthquake where they DO want you to fight the fire.) My unshakable morality requires that, if the fire stems from Ron’s attempts to dry his skivvies on the lamp, I’ll spring into fire-fighting action as if it’s a Mexican earthquake.
Tomorrow we head south 221 miles to La Paz, with a visit to a goat farm en route, along with some tortilla-making instruction.
Travels with Valerie 
Tip from a cyclist who has to wash all kit daily And then have it dry the next morning: borrow a fan at the front desk.
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Come on, Ron! Didn’t the rooms come equipped with hairdryers? Granted though, the decorative drying technique has its charms. But I must admit that the next time I’m in a hotel room, and I reach for the lamp, I’m going to wonder if some dude’s undies were once hanging there, and I will opt for my phone flashlight.
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