Monday morning and we need to pack up the tent and get ready to catch the ferry across the Sea of Cortez to Mazatlan. Gayle shows me an item on Facebook, a post that purports to come from an Italian doctor, who is unnamed. You know the kind. It looks like one of those classic "fake news"/misinformation/alarmist posts but actually looks authentic. It describes the writer's alarm (yes, alarm!!!) at the UK's response to the coronavirus, in light of his own experience dealing with it in Italy. "It's like watching a horror film - one where we already know how it turns out." Yes, alarmist, alarming. We are alarmed.
We have already spent a week immersed in the news reports. We have watched in great disappointment our Prime Minister appearing as his usual bluff and blustery self. His advice is to wash your hands for as long as it takes to sing Happy Birthday. Wow. In Italy the corpses are piling up. Boris is suggesting people might not go to the pub for now.
In La Paz they held a Triathlon at the weekend just gone. Competitors from all over Mexico came. We saw them registering to race on Saturday morning on the malecon. There was an enclosure which we could walk around full of stalls selling bike stuff, swimming gear etc. Coronavirus? Here, have some antibacterial gel for your hands...........
We decide to stay in La Paz. We think it would be difficult to continue cycling through Mexico. We might actually spread the virus. The responsible thing would be to stop and sit it out. We like La Paz and we'd rather wait here than get stopped somewhere later in a place not of our choosing. There's also something preferable about being in Baja California Sur during the pandemic. We're at the end of a long peninsula - in a low-population state. To get here from other parts of Mexico you have to take a ferry, a plane, or a very long drive down the highway from Tijuana or Mexicali. Geography might help reduce the spread of the virus. At least this is what we tell ourselves.
So we say goodbye to Tuly and move into an Airbnb place - a casita, small house in a quiet spot near to the centre. There's a kitchen/lounge, a bedroom and bathroom. After a week of constant conversation and talk of coronavirus it feels like a little peaceful oasis. Here we can take stock of the situation.
We have already spent a week immersed in the news reports. We have watched in great disappointment our Prime Minister appearing as his usual bluff and blustery self. His advice is to wash your hands for as long as it takes to sing Happy Birthday. Wow. In Italy the corpses are piling up. Boris is suggesting people might not go to the pub for now.
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| Steve Bell's cartoon from The Guardian, 3rd March |
In La Paz they held a Triathlon at the weekend just gone. Competitors from all over Mexico came. We saw them registering to race on Saturday morning on the malecon. There was an enclosure which we could walk around full of stalls selling bike stuff, swimming gear etc. Coronavirus? Here, have some antibacterial gel for your hands...........
We decide to stay in La Paz. We think it would be difficult to continue cycling through Mexico. We might actually spread the virus. The responsible thing would be to stop and sit it out. We like La Paz and we'd rather wait here than get stopped somewhere later in a place not of our choosing. There's also something preferable about being in Baja California Sur during the pandemic. We're at the end of a long peninsula - in a low-population state. To get here from other parts of Mexico you have to take a ferry, a plane, or a very long drive down the highway from Tijuana or Mexicali. Geography might help reduce the spread of the virus. At least this is what we tell ourselves.
So we say goodbye to Tuly and move into an Airbnb place - a casita, small house in a quiet spot near to the centre. There's a kitchen/lounge, a bedroom and bathroom. After a week of constant conversation and talk of coronavirus it feels like a little peaceful oasis. Here we can take stock of the situation.
