During our stay here in La Paz, we have had the pleasure of meeting quite a few interesting people. We have met locals, other cruisers from all over the world, transplants, ex patriots, tattooist (more on that later), bartenders, transvestites, a former attorney from Carson City, artists, musicians, crafts people, surfers, crackheads, etc. almost all were interesting people and have interesting lives while living here, traveling, working or looking for their next adventure. As we don't like doing much of the touristy things, we have made friends with locals and other cruisers that have showed us the local life. Our Spanish is getting better and helps with seeing the local sites and just getting by.
Things here, although much slower paced, are not much different at least in the bigger picture, but quite different when you start seeing the details. We both love people watching and if you are observant enough and are lucky enough to have locals to ask, you can learn amazing things that I don't think the average tourist traveler does.
We took the time, and we have a lot of it, to just sit on a corner, outside of a small shop selling drinks and munchies. What we have seen is this, drivers are rather polite, in spite of never coming to full stops at alto signs, and will stop in the middle of the street to let you "j-walk". They do liberally use their horns but for warnings more than in anger. What they don't do well is park. I mean holy shit, every bumper is dented in this entire country. We have watched them park cars by tapping the one behind, I think to gauge distance from the one in front, tap the one in front, then nuzzle bumper to bumper again with the car behind them, get out to look and as long as neither bumper has fallen off, shrug their shoulders and lock up the car and head off. Other things, they still have full-service gas stations, techno/disco/club music coming out of a small mom and pop shop, loudly at 10 AM is normal advertisement, 10 AM is about the normal opening time, if they're going to open that day.
One interesting thing Becky noticed is (without sounding mean here) that they all look alike. She's right, the diversity, or lack there of, in Mexico is not what we are used to. Although this explains a few things on how we are looked at or treated, it does start to make other things noticeable. Although some 98% (I'm making that up) are brown skin and black hair, there are differences that we have noticed and asked about. The Indian population is probably the most noticeable (my opinion) because they look slightly different and carry themselves and dress differently. They seam to be "second class citizens" working the most menial jobs or as street vendors sailing the trinkets to tourists. They are smaller in stature and wear clothes with a tradition flare. It has been interesting to just sit back and watch how locals interact with them. There is certainly economic diversity that, I think, is a large dividing line, but not the biggest.
Amongst men, the big dividing line is perceived importance, weather by the type of job, the clothes that are worn, or by how pretty their wife is, it's all about machismo. For the women it seems much more subtle and based on the husbands place and the clothes the woman wears. This is a VERY male society, in public anyway. I think it's not so much at home.
Some small things we have learned are that the elderly baggers at the mercado (store), for the most part, have no pension or social security and are not employees but bag groceries for tips only. Taxi drivers are some of the nicest people here. Locals do not like Americans to ask for a English speaking person and love it when you try out your Spanish. They just look at you and smile when say "couch I small Spanish" and then try out some sort of international non-regular redneck sign language. I just know they think I'm the funniest gringo around and maybe take pity on me because they think I'm mentally challenged. But just so you know, the sign language works some of the time.
All that being said, so far, we have had a great time and have learned a lot, mostly about ourselves. This is usually, metaphorically done by looking in a mirror. We like to do it while sitting on a corner.
