La Ventana - Day 7 (recap) Sunday - La Paz run, another light wind day, the feast,

Casa Verde's Aztec sauna is the igloo looking thingy

view from our private kitched in Elena

OK, so I have some back story for today/tongiht.  Tonight we hold a feast for everyone.  I cook and grill the meal up and everyone ends up impressed.

Now here is the back story.  As mentioned, my ATM card originally got turned off for trying to use it at the Walmart when shopping right after we first arrived in La Paz.  I got everything cleared up with the Bank after using Casa Verde's Skype phone. 

If you remember, Becky and I were very excited the other day on our bike ride because we found an ATM about 2 miles up the street at a gas station.  So, a day or two after that we took a bike ride back to it in the middle of a hot sunny day, only to realize the dang thing didn't work at all....no lights, no nothing.  So, no pesos for Becky and I.   We manage for a few days, but it becomes apparent that somehow I am going to need to get to La Paz to get us more money.

Friday we hit the bottom of the money barrel.  Not to worry though because that night Becky ends up chatting with this really cool guy, Dave, who we met at the pizza party on Tuesday.  He says he will give me a ride into La Paz.  We run into him at the sidewalk kitchen when eating the super burro and he tells me to walk over to Baja Joe's and find him at 8am and we will make the trip.

So, I do and we end up at a market in La Paz around 9am.  I shop, get a ton of good stuff (carne asada, pargo, chorizo, eggs, cheese, peppers of all sorts and colors, avacados, spices), and I even get a McDonald's cheeseburger for breakfast...which was great because I was slightly hungover still from the night before.

Also, I get pesos from the ATM as well.  Yay, finally no more worries....

When we get back, the wind is blowing and I head out in front of Casa Verde to take a look.

me: black rash guard with BKB and THEORY logo

OK, so the wind is light.  That sucks!  After rolling my 16m over its 5th line yesterday and having to drag myself in, I really don't want to have to ride the semi-truck of a kite today.  I wait around seeing if things will pick up, but they don't.  About that time, John Dietz comes in from riding his Naish 15m Cult.  He offers to let me take it for a spin if I hurry up and get ready.

I hustle getting my gear on and get out there ASAP.

Andy Duffus gives Becky his camera, shows her how to take continuous shots, and tells her to "fill up the sd card".  Wrong thing to say to Becky...she takes 818 pics all together. Holy Crap!!!

At least she got a series of me riding, although at quite a long way off...she wasn't paying attention and missed me jumping right in front of her.  Oh well, better luck next time.  I did make an animated gif from the series though:

me riding John's Naish 15m Cult She also makes be take some girlie kissing shadow pictures with her.  OK, so it ended up kinda cool! 

Becky also had a great day riding.  She did a jetski assisted lesson with her trainer and had a ripping good time.  She got up and rode, although since the wind was so light, she called it a day after 1hr of lessons since she was so under-powered.  Being under powered sucks when learning, because it takes way more skill to stay moving.  She decides to wait for another day of good wind before she spends more money on lessons.

She also gets her first battle wound from riding.  She doesn't know how, but at some point she must have hit her foot on something, maybe the fin on the board even, and got quite the gash.  We cleaned it up and got her bandaged.  Good thing all kiteboarders bring first aid supplies.  She is a toughy though, so no whining or complaining from her!

Becky's foot bandaged after her first kiteboarding battle wound

Like I mentioned, we invited everyone for a feast.  Besides all of the goodies I bought at the market in La Paz, two days earlier I had bought 10 lobster tails for $20 usd... whatcha think? Good deal?  Anyways, I made lobster and scallop ceviche with it, and served it as an appetizer for the early comers.  John Hausman as well as Ken and Karol, both bought 1 kilo each of fresh shimp.  John deshelled them, and I grilled them up.

Like I mentioned earlier, I grilled carne asada, shrimp, and scallops...Oh, and these little yellow peppers.  It was quite a hit. I used some soy and different spices on them all.  Everyone kept asking what I put on them so I guess it was really tasty!  I baked a pargo too.  Yumm Yumm Yumm. 

The whole Seattle crew was there.  We also had to have made 100 margaritas.  You should have seen all the empty bottles the next day.  That is probably why once again, we failed to get any great pics.  Here is a video (although not of me) of the grill at Casa Verde that I used to cook the feast.

Here are a few shots of some of the crew kicking it before the feast.

obviously Andy is talking about the biggest boost ever... " I hung on for dear life"

So, no pictures of the feast....but I will leave you with another wicked picture of the sky in La Ventana.

photo: Andy Duffus