Lazy daze

A friend pointed out to me yesterday that I've been remiss in not posting the news that George and I moved into our completed home a month ago. Considering the fact that the whole point of this blog was to share our Loreto Bay construction journey from start to finish, she's right. So for the record I'd like to announce that our Casa de Nuevos Suenos is finally a reality. From top to bottom our home is a thing of beauty. And other than a few minor glitches like a broken water heater (we're in our third day of no hot water) and a leaky dishwasher, we're very happy with our home.

The problem I have in putting fingers to keyboard can be summed up by the title of this post. Since moving permanently to Loreto Bay four months ago, I often find myself lost in a lazy daze. Life here in Loreto Bay moves at a much slower pace. Each day flows seamlessly into the next, so much so that I find myself surprised that an entire week has passed. It’s a peaceful lifestyle and one I've grown to love. The days are full, although not very exciting. I read (too much probably), I putter around the house, I complain about the heat, the dust, dirt and construction noise, I lay on the beach and read some more and generally indulge in the kind of indolent, non-productive behavior reserved for lazy no-counts (like me) or the fabulously wealthy. Although George indulges in the same kind of laziness, he's also very involved in our Condo Sub-Regime and spends part of every day on emails and condo regime business.

Apart from all that lolling around, the most rewarding part of living here are the people we meet, and so far we've met and enjoyed the company of many fellow home owners. Shortly after moving into our home we hosted a roof-top party for our Agua Viva neighbors and a few of our Founder's neighbors. It was so much fun to share (and show off!) our home with fellow home owners and we were very gratified that more than 30 of our neighbors showed up for our bash. Everyone brought something to share so the food and drink was outstanding and I don't think I'm far off the mark here when I say a good time was had by all.

We also spend at least two or three nights a week meeting friends and neighbors for dinner or drinks and getting together for the weekly "music night" wherein George and other musicians in the community meet to play music and have a good time.

In short, we are very lucky and we know it.

On the other hand, the least rewarding aspect of life here in Agua Viva is the uncertainty about our phase of the development and the increasing costs we’re all being asked to pay. Sometimes these problems seem so overwhelming we aren't sure if our dream of a completed and viable community will ever become a reality. Our biggest fear is that some home owners may become so disillusioned they decide to throw in the towel. All I can say is please don’t! The only way we can make this work is to come together as a community of like-minded people. And for the most part, we are like-minded. Most of us bought into the vision of a sustainable community and that is still a work in progress. We need everyone to remain committed to the dream of Loreto Bay or we’re doomed to failure. And we’ve sure come too far for that to happen.

In its own humble, dusty way, Loreto Bay is a paradise, but a paradise with some thorns. It's up to those of us who care about this place to make sure those thorns are pruned, so that the vision we all bought into can be realized.

To mark the beginning of this new chapter George and I have decided to rename our home and our blog Casa del Milagro, because it is most certainly a miracle that it exists! Look for future postings about life here in Agua Viva, which I’ll try to generate with more consistency.

Be careful what you wish for...

For many months now home owners in Loreto Bay have been hoping for a buyer to step in and save the day. We’ve known for some time – unofficially – that the buyer is Homex, a Mexican company that previously specialized in low-income housing in Mexico, but is now embarking on an ambitious resort-building plan across Mexico.

Then several weeks ago we noticed a flurry of construction activity north of AV and we learned – unofficially again - that part of their resort-building plan includes constructing 803 units of apartments, townhomes and garage homes in the area just north of Agua Viva, with the first two model homes to be completed by May 25 (we’ll believe that when we see it, but they have made a lot of progress as seen in the photo above). That area was always slated to be a part of Loreto Bay, but now it appears it will be a separate community, apart from both Agua Viva and the Founder’s Neighborhood. And according to the site plans, this project will also include several pools and a beach club for those residents use only.

So to sum up, the only thing we know at this point is that we are not being invited to Homex’s party. We won’t have pool or beach club privileges and we didn’t even get this news firsthand. Instead, we got it via a “pass it along, por favor” from a Homex rep to a Loreto Bay home owner. That’s offensive and too reminiscent of Re:Play’s style of re:laying news through a third party.

It’s clear that Homex is not anxious to start any kind of dialogue with Loreto Bay home owners. While we’ve been waiting anxiously for news, they’ve been very industriously getting all their ducks in a row with nary a word to us.

But that won’t deter us from asking questions and demanding answers. We’ve been shut out of any conversation for years now, first with Loreto Bay Company, then Citigroup and its minions, which include TSD/Loreto, Re:Play, Alvarez & Marsal and Cushman & Wakefield. This is really getting tiresome.

In an effort to get the ball rolling on a list of questions for our new homies at Homex here goes:

What are your plans for the estuaries? Your site plan notes lakes not estuaries. Do we take that to mean these will remain stagnant, mosquito-breeding algae-filled ponds?

What are your plans for the Paseo and embankments? Will you work with Fonatur to pave and beautify the road leading into Loreto Bay from your development?

What do you plan on calling your development? Since you will not be a part of the Loreto Bay project, we hope you’ve come up with a different name.

Although this is not a question for Homex to answer, it is one on the minds of every home owner in Agua Viva: How much more are Agua Viva home owners going to have to shell out to have even the semblance of a real community? Back to Homex with three remaining questions: Will you help us at all? What exactly are your intentions regarding our phase of the development? And why haven’t you reached out to us yet?

The very fact that Homex hasn’t offered any official acknowledgement of the purchase and their plans does not bode well for us, especially those of us in Agua Viva, which looks more like a bombed out area in Baghdad than a high-priced development in the Baja.

Maybe we should have been a little more specific about what we were wishing for in a buyer…

There's no place like home

The last day of our trip to Loreto was mostly uneventful. We checked out of the Malarrimo Hotel (decent and even charming in a bare bones kind of way, but overpriced for what you get) in Guerrero Negro early in the morning and headed south.

The landscape had flattened out, making driving easier and less stressful.
We stopped for gas and headed out with a sense of excitement knowing that an end to our road trip was finally in sight.

Other than getting stuck for a half hour or so behind a huge piece of machinery that took up both lanes of the highway (we think it was an electric sub-station maybe), we didn’t have any real excitement until we hit the fifth of the six military checkpoints on our journey.

As soon as we stopped and put the window down, the soldier who motioned us to a stop very impatiently and abruptly ordered us out of the car. This was unexpected based on our previous experiences, but we quickly got of the car and stood off to the side so he and his fellow soldiers could search the car. We kept smiling while they poked and prodded our belongings and didn’t expect any trouble as we weren’t trying to hide anything.

The soldier who’d ordered us out of the car was going through a big straw bag I had packed with odds and ends, one being a new LED mini-flashlight that George had bought me expressly for the trip. He pulled the flashlight out of the bag and grinning he asked, “Is this for me?” He was looking right at me and I just shrugged and said, “If you say so.” He didn’t like that answer and asked again. As uneasy as I was, I wasn’t going to give him permission to steal from me, so I said the same thing again. It was an uncomfortable few moments and I’m not sure I responded the way I should have. But George and I both kept our demeanor neutral and polite, so maybe that’s what counts in the end.

Maybe he was just bored and decided to have a little fun bullying the gringos. Whatever the case, he gave up or lost interest and tossed the light back into the bag looking annoyed. But he did let us continue on our journey and we were more than relieved to pull away.

The incident was minor, but definitely disconcerting as it was the only unpleasant exchange we’d had during the whole trip.

As we neared Santa Rosalia, we groaned as we saw more mountains in the distance, but it was exciting to be so near the Sea of Cortez for the first time in our trip. We’d read a little about Santa Rosalia but were still surprised by the town, which was hilly with narrow and hard to navigate streets.

We stopped for a quick lunch and hit the road again. By this time, we were both very anxious to reach our destination, so other than slowing for views of the beautiful bays south of Mulege and one final military checkpoint, we weren’t going to stop unless absolutely necessary!

That final military checkpoint more than made up for the bully at the previous stop. The soldier who motioned us to stop asked where we were from and where we were headed and when I told him we were from New Mexico he looked puzzled until I said, “Nuevo Mexico.” He laughed then and very sweetly motioned us to leave.

The rest of the trip seemed to take forever. That last hour was agony, but finally we reached Loreto.

Hallelujah! We were home.

Next up: Getting our bearings and a nasty case of the flu

Dangerous curves and tsunami alerts

The most notable thing about our drive from Ensenada to Loreto was the one thing that we’ve never seen mentioned in all the blogs and Web posts we’ve read about the drive and that is how much mountain driving is involved. There’s a lot of it and it comes with all the curves and switchbacks you expect in that terrain. Don’t expect to make very good time.

Our day started with a light mist, which rapidly progressed to a steady downpour by the time we’d checked out of our hotel and made our way to Home Depot. We were helped with our shopping by a sales associate who spoke very good English and was eager to warn us of the impending tsunamis up and down the Baja coast. This was the morning of the big Chilean earthquake and the threat of tsunamis had been issued from Mexico all the way to the Pacific Northwest.

“Just the Pacific side?” we asked. “Oh, no”, he said, “on the Sea of Cortez, too!” Armed with that dire prediction (which turned out to be unfounded for both coasts), we set out for Guerrero Negro in the rain. And it rained, and rained and rained for a very long time that first day. The mountains were beautiful even in the rain, but we moved at a snail’s pace through the mountain passes and it looked like we’d have to stop in Catavina for the night, instead of Guerrero Negro.

By the time we reached Catavina, it was about an hour or two from dark so we decided we should spend the night at the Desert Inn. It had finally stopped raining an hour or so before we got there, but still it was windy and chilly when we stopped at the motel. I should also mention that you could miss Catavina if you happened to blink.

We went into the hotel for a pit stop and to decide if we’d stay or press on. That decision was made easy when it appeared there was no electricity and the staff was less than helpful. No one even asked if they could help us. I had to go back to the car for a flashlight to find my way to the restroom!

But everything we’d read said “DO NOT DRIVE AFTER DARK!” We talked about it and decided that a little night driving would be OK. And it was. But don’t do this if you don’t have to! It was scary and stressful. We did make it to Guerrero Negro, but it was a long couple of hours.

As for stopping for gas, believe everything you’ve ever read about it! Fill up every chance you get. A map we’d gotten at the Ensenada visitor center indicated that Catavina had a Pemex station so we didn’t stop in El Rosario (I think that was the town), even though George wanted to. “Oh, no,” I said. “We’ve got plenty of gas until we get to Catavina.”

And we did, but it turns out that the Pemex station in Catavina is closed! I’m not certain it’s ever even been open, because it sure didn’t look like it.

We still had enough gas to make it to Guerrero Negro (probably), but not wanting to take any chances, George pulled over to get a few gallons from the guy selling gas out of cans by the side of the road. I can always count on George for the smart moves.

By the time we reached Guerrero Negro, we’d already gone through four military checkpoints (there were a total of six from the border to Loreto) and we’d had no problem whatsoever. The soldiers were civil and we hadn’t been searched or questioned beyond, “Where are you going?” and “Where are you from?” We weren’t particularly worried about the checkpoints because we look like exactly what we are – a couple of American geezers who are no threat to anyone! And we weren’t carrying contraband or anything that could be considered suspicious so we felt safe.

Next up: A Mexican bully and home at last!