La Paz: Season Two

A Surprising Turn

I was going to write this last night, but we were both feeling a little blue and had to get some sleep.

A couple days after I wrote the last entry about our offer on the condominium, we withdrew it. We don’t know if our offer would have been accepted. There was another significant reason to bail. 

Having lived in Ashland, a community that has to deal with water shortages, we knew we had to do some research about the situation in La Paz. After all, we are in a desert, though surrounded by the glistening, aquamarine water of the Sea of Cortez, one tends to forget. 

What we learned alarmed us. 

Baja California Sur is the driest state in Mexico and also the fastest growing. To meet water needs in La Paz, they are building an aqueduct to bring water from the aquifer in El Carrizal. The La Paz aquifer is inadequate and increasingly saline. According to some sources the new aqueduct will only supply the current population of La Paz, and the city, like the rest of coastal BCS, is growing rapidly. 

Also, La Paz has a big problem with lack of metering. Only 25% of residential and commercial buildings here have meters, so there is no economic incentive to conserve water. Plus, if you have a leak, no one ever knows. Think of the untold gallons of water that have and will disappear.

Apparently, the water shortage here is so acute that at certain times residents must go without water for several days to a week. Our host at accommodation #2 did talk about having to tell her guests more than once that there was no water for showers or other needs.

Given the situation—and I’m sure that we’ve only touched on the complexity of the water issues—we couldn’t go forward. As well as being an environmental issue, it’s doubtful we would get our investment back. The water situation will only become worse.

Or consider this…the Home Owners Association of this project we were thinking of buying into decides we need to invest in our own desalination plant. A development in Cabo did that, and imagine the cost to HOA members.

We made our decision, and it felt unbelievably sad and difficult. This path that we had newly charted, the plans that we were making, were no more. We lost the wind in our sails.

I sent an email to try to explain why we were backing out, extending apologies, saying our thanks. 

We left the apartment to find some lunch and ran into Victor, one of the sales people. We hugged. He's a sweet man and had been great to work with. He explained there would be a huge water tank beneath the building, capable of holding 100,000 gallons of water!

So I thought to myself, “Great, we’ll be one of those people who are showering when everyone else in town has no water.” And of course, the tank has to be replenished from somewhere.

He tried to explain ways La Paz was dealing with water, about desalination, but there was nothing he could say that would change our minds.

Over lunch, we wondered. Could we change our minds? Was there a way? But we kept returning to NO.

Writing this, I still feel somewhat bummed. It all seemed like such a great adventure that was workable. The view from that condo was spectacular. 

We had rented a car earlier in the week, and it turned out to be a good time to get away and think about something different. We went up to Loreto for a night, and then the next few days we went out to the La Paz beaches. 

Tecolote Beach, La Paz, where we got financial consultation.

The water is so beautiful and blue out there that when the gulls soar over the water, their white underwings glow with an aquamarine sheen. It’s stunning.

At Tecolote Beach we got into a conversation with two sisters who had grown up in Tijuana. One sister now lives in San Diego and the other in Rosarito, 10 miles south of the Mexico-American border in Baja California.

We told them our story, and they said as one, “Never buy in Mexico. We’re Mexican, and we never buy in Mexico. You will never get your money back. Rent. Don’t buy.”

I’m not sure that’s always true, but it felt good to hear. Then we recalled that the hotel owner in accommodation #2 also told us not to buy. Too much hassle. And I can only muddle through Spanish, how would we deal with hassles?

On Thursday we headed down to Cabo to see some Ashland friends who were relaxing in style at one of the big hotels. We had a lovely time, hanging out by the pool and eating good food. We headed back up here Friday. 

That’s when the sadness hit again. We couldn't really name what we were feeling or why we were feeling that way, but it certainly had to do with loss of a very real dream, and the question of what now? What are we doing? What do we want?

On the other hand, we have to laugh at ourselves. We've only been here three weeks and we almost bought a condo. Ed and I think we have to work on impulse control!

One of our goals was to find a winter destination, and we both love it here. We can do that. It's not quite as adventuresome as moving somewhere, but we've already booked a place for November. 

And we just came back from dinner, and have the idea that we'll rent a place here or in Spain for one year. That's a compromise.

But we'll see. We've got time to consider.