Last day in Loreto

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Our final day in Loreto. Loreto has grown on me in the course of our stay, it has a sleepy charm, friendly people and a small town atmosphere that I feel very familiar with. It is the Mexican equivalent of Sheringham, the small Norfolk seaside town that I went to high school in. The Historica Centro is very quaint, clean and well tended - I hope the photographs I have taken do it justice.

My first port of call for the day was the Bank. I arrived at the bank with no idea how to say "I've had my card taken by your ATM. Please can I have it back." I started with "Hola, buenos dias" instead. Then asked if they spoke English - "only a little" - more than my Spanish. With a few English words, a few Spanish and much gesticulating, I eventually made myself understood. I could have my card back at 12pm. That was a whole lot easier than I had feared.

After breakfast I worked on this website for a few hours, sat on the beach and read, watched the pelicans fishing, listened to my "Teach Yourself Spanish" course and generally had a relaxing day - fortunately remembering to pick up my Visa card from the bank.

Matt, Robbie and I met up for tacos. The same little taqueria as the night before - I found out its name, "La Renya". After more great tacos we got a Tecate beer take out and sat on the beach chatting, putting various bits of the world to rights, and generally agreeing that quitting work and blowing all our savings on travelling the world was the best thing that any of us has done. We headed back to the motel for an early night as we had a bus to catch at 8am - meaning we have to get up at around 6am to all get a shower, breakfast and pack up the awkward rucksacks. But Loreto held one last surprise.

We were almost back to the motel when a pickup stopped - and a girl shouted "Hey Guys" - we went over to talk. This called for our best chat up lines. "Como esta?", after we had exhausted all our Spanish - which didn't take any length of time at - the driver started speaking perfect English to us - she was from San Diego and was here visiting family.

We went to the beach with some more take out beer. Finally we got to indulge in the local activity of cruising - it really wasn't as exciting as I had expected. On the beach I chatted to Lidia who had the least English of the three girls - she was 21, studying to be a primary school teacher in Mexicali - 1 year left to qualification, and had grown up in a town nearby. She was cousin to Nicole's (San Deigo girl) niece Mujana (no idea how to spell) who was also 21 - lots of family. I learnt so much Spanish, when things got to be really difficult Nicole was able to step in and provide a translation. Being skilled in the international art of romance I impressed Lidia with my monkey skills on the kiddies play ground, scared her by pretending to pull her into the deep water, and somehow managed a perfect rugby tackle by tripping whilst running on the sand. "lo seinto, soy tonto" - the rugby tackle didn't impress anyone much, least of all Lidia.

We all went to the last bar open in town till three am, drank, danced - though there wasn't really room. A bar stool fell on Lidia - hurting her leg - the girl is very accident prone - I don't think it was me that knocked the stool. Matt, the girls and I eventually headed out, they had a bus to catch at 7am - they dropped us off at the motel - where Boghen had gone was a complete mystery. It was 4am, the alarm was set for six - at 5.55am Boghen walks in - covered in sweat, rambling incoherently about gun touting Mexicans and slave girls from Florida - I don't think any of us including Boghen actually really know what happened to him that night. 6am - a whole 5mins of sleep later and the alarm goes. Why is it that the quite evenings are the ones that turn into weird and crazy nights? - especially when there is a bus to catch or something important to do the following day.

We managed to catch the bus, have breakfast - unfortunately I was placed right at the front of the coach next to the fattest man on the bus - which meant that sleep was difficult and uncomfortable. Next stop Cabo San Lucas - party town of the southern Baja coast.

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