Some of the La Ventana neighbourhood

 As requested by my sister, the neighbourhood.



Sunrise on November, 12, 2022 from the back - note the rooster coop and the cameo by the local cat!


And the front


From here, you can see the variety of homes, businesses, water systems, vehicles, recycling, animals

HOMES - casitas, campground, trailers, birdsnest!

The neighbour’s mailbox (typically seen )

Another neighbour’s collection of water jugs
Construction of a tall building near here - Graham’s been wondering, “What would hold it up? It appears to be just cinder bars — maybe the corner columns with rebar gives it some structural integrity,” he muses.  At the very top you can see the “crane” made of 2x4s.

Two doors down - a clean and secure property.  Neighbours’ license plates indicate they are from British Columbia — a very commonly seen plate here.
Contrasting materials, and a rare car garage.
Detached 2-bedroom house (for sale at $249 USD).

This house has the most annoying dog whose owners must work nights leaving the dog to pine for them and bark almost literally all night long.

Christmas tree at a trailer park. (We saw the septic hose draining into the sand beneath the trailer straight ahead.)

Shade in front of the trailer for lounging on their sofa.


Birds nest for a tiny bird like a hummingbird my app tells me is a verdin.

                                             (Not my photo)

BUSINESSES

Tree nursery 
Kitesurfing shop with an ice cream shop behind it in a blue metal container

Playa Central, the key water sports centre a block from us and the ice cream vendor that walks around with his push cart visiting local work people in the area


An upholstery company - the staff was not in — it was Sunday, and Sunday is definitely family day around here. 

The local grocery store for things like TP, bananas, pasta, and some hotdogs.(best prices!)
A pizza shop up on top that sells hot dog pizza, a family residence beneath, and a hardware store.

Local craft market with towels, Mexican blankets, sombreros, and beautiful porcelain sinks.
A popular chicken restaurant, and a liquor and drinks store.
The local utility company adding lines to the concrete poles they installed last week.


A new kitesurfing shop that was getting fresh signage by an artist hand painting the letters.

And a family hot dog stand that comes out randomly. Ironically with four dogs that come to greet me as I pass by!
                                     Here it is at night!           
Preschool and their lunch program

Farmer’s market stands: magnets, blender drinks, jewelry, ice cream (from the red cactus balls!)

Each artist has a clever way of displaying their wares; I liked this one with rice!



Farmers market ice cream stand!  Red cactus ball ice cream!

WATER SYSTEMS
Local people get water delivered to a large vessel two times per week.

You can see the blue line indicating the vat is about half full.  From my quick research it looks like the Baja has water from three sources:  watershed/aquifer (rainwater), aqueduct (Colorado River),  desalination plan at (built in the 60s).  

The tap water here is very salty, and even when I boiled it the first day for tea, it was undrinkable.  We do wash our veggies with it, and cook rice and soup with it.  There is some rumour that there is arsenic in this community water we were getting our water from at first, that we contacted a local delivery person who gets sealed bottles to people for 20 or 15 pesos (depending on your relationship with him (Daniel) — that’s about $1.40.


While it did take about four days to get the water delivered — even thought I left specific instructions and indication that my 20 p note was on the bottle, it eventually got here


Another way 


My water jug just inside the property.
Water heaters, just like the ones I’ve seen in Greece.

Local water truck they use to water the palm trees that line the road as the city worked to beautify the area.  The driver pushes a button, and water comes flowing out the green tube right onto the plants by the side of the road
You can also notice a lot of garbage that I’ll show more of later.



MORE VEHICLES
To slow the traffic on the highway or major artery, large speed bumps were installed.  Traffic comes to a crawl, but this video I took, caught the police vehicle speeding along over it!


I also notice at around 6 am, some busses run — I assume they take people to job sites or schools or to La Paz for work in the larger city.  There’s no obvious bus stops, but likely “by request” or prearrangement.




Owner’s ATV - a necessity around here; note local pit bull, Rocco, in the back seat!


And with all of these vehicles everywhere, crossing the road takes a lot of patience, focus, and care:





I think I”ll leave it here for today, and talk about recycling, captivating vegetation, and  dogs next and final blog.  Hasta luego.


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