And then we were in La Paz.  It's a definite city, with a sprawling outskirts and the whole bit.  We were trying to find the airport since Roby-Wan was leaving for a tour with his band The Kung Fu Grip, and there were absolutely no signs for it anywhere.  The theory is they hide the signs so you'll get lost and spend some money in the city.  There are, of course, plenty of signs for the airport on the way out of town.

We got lost and spent a little money in the city,

then sent Roby on his way,

as did the entire staff of the airport.

Back in La Paz we found the Gringo Zone, which is a gorgeous little city.  It reminds me of something in Holland, but with desert heat.  Lots of little shops, and also some American-style corporate megamarts, but somehow the mood of the place is still excellent.

We went to the local internet cafe, where everything that could go wrong did, 

and we met our delightful insurance adjuster to talk about the powerline incident.  As he put it, the Mexican police "raped" us, so we really couldn't expect to be reimbursed.  He showed us the statute in the Mexican law book that says it's not our fault if we hit a powerline that is lower than so many centimeters, which meant we were in the right.   He all but laughed at us for not knowing this obvious bit of information.  He was brilliantly smarmy, and to top it all off he even asked Rina for a date.

Rina declined, and we went for some much-needed debauchery of our own.

There's lots of goofy gringo traps here, and we fell into a doozey when we went to an absurd place called "Carlos and Charley's" or something like that.  We were famished and tired, so we overlooked the fact that they had an English sign reading, "Cause a ruckus at a nudist beach, wear a Carlos & Charley's t-shirt."  We ordered a round of margaritas which were in fact barely flavored snow cones, and we sent them back in high gringo fashion and left without paying.  Our waiter chased us down and insisted we pay for the drinks we'd hardly touched, but Rina met with the manager and worked her usual magic and we were on our way,

and thank god, since we found a great place,

with a great waiter.  He made each margarita from fresh fruit, and every one was different, which kept us coming back for more and more and more and more and morfdafadfthh.

Our smashed selves stumbled back to the roof of the Buss for a little sleep.

We were parked in the center of town, which added just the right twist.  There was an incredible array of sounds during the night, from the cooing adolescent lovers flirting for what must have been two hours right outside The Buss, to the dogfight that set every dog and rooster in the city to howling, to the hit-and-run car accident followed by police sirens, to the car alarm that went on for a very long half hour.  Each sound was totally Mexican, totally beautiful.