The sisters arrive - police and palapas

Two of Jason's three sisters came to visit us for a week. It was fantastic to spend time with them and they were also our first visitors in Mexico. They flew into Cabo which is cheaper than La Paz, and only two hours away by car. We decided to rent a car to fetch the girls because it was cheaper than them taking the bus from the airport. Theoretically cheaper anyway.

We failed to consider the fact that we would inevitably be pulled over by the policia not 10 minutes out of La Paz. Gringos driving rental cars attract a bit of attention amongst the the po-po, as it turns out. The very courteous officer that pulled us over very courteously informed us that I had missed a stop sign. Interesting because neither Jason nor I saw said stop sign. We could have missed it. But then again, we were driving on a heavily trafficked road - and no other cars in front of us stopped at this mythical stop sign. Regardless, our options were to come down to the station or pay $100US on the spot. I negotiated the bribe down to 800 pesos ($60US) and was feeling OK about that until I found out that the custom is to hand over $5-10 with your license. Never more than 200 pesos. We'll chalk that up to a lesson learned and next time we come down to Mexico, we'll have a budget item for bribes.

Once we got back on the road, we carefully spotted every sign for the next 5 hours of travel. We stopped in Todos Santos on the way to the airport, an adorable little town on the Pacific coast of Baja. We wandered around the little artsy shops and then attempted to find Playa Tortuga (Turtle Beach). We were unsuccessful at finding any turtles, but we did find most of the potholes in town on our way to the beach. Sorry National Car Rental.

We picked up the girls and got them back to La Paz, but not before stopping for a bit at a little roadside palapa for some authentic Mexican tacos.

THE Hotel California

We decided taking the rental car down this sand path might not be in our best interest

Jason chillin' on a dune

Incredible beach at Todos Santos

Tammy's favorite place of the trip

First lesson aboard Hello World? How to use the head.

23°27.189'N 110°13.548'W