Today I got my wish (Tim) to have an authentic Mexican cultural experience. Pictures and videos below. 
Last week we had a group of amazing guys wash and polish our boat. Ricardo was the lead guy of the three. He spoke some English and helped me with my Spanish. Ricardo came by the boat a couple weeks ago and told me about what they can do and for how much. He built rapport and I was sold. So we had them come out and go bow to stern. The wind was blowing pretty hard the day they were cleaning the boat, so at the end of the day we were gathering the canvas hatch covers and discovered one was missing. I thought it was blown away, so I went in the dingy to search all over the marina. It was gone. 
I called the office and said, they lost the canvas hatch cover. A few days later, Ricardo came and apologized and said he will have a company make a new one. (He had to pay for the replacement cost) However, Lynette kept saying that it must have sunk to the bottom, it's only 9-12 feet, so let's get someone to dive for it. 
We decided, it's time to get a diver to clean our hull below the waterline. So I asked Ricardo if he knew anyone, and he immediately said Kiko, he's older and the best in all of La Paz. So I hired him through Ricardo as the the translator, and asked him to tell him to look for the cover under the docks. 
The fun thing was after the hull was cleaned, Kiko came up with the canvas hatch cover. Yay! So I called Ricardo and told him we found it. He was so relieved, it was going to cost him $50 personally, which is a big portion of his monthly income. He was so happy, mucho gusto! He said, Tim, you're a good man, you're my new friend. So he was over the moon and excited to be released from the burden. 
Then on Christmas Eve, he called over to me from another boat he was working on, I invited him over as Lynette was baking cookies for the many workers around the Costabaja and gave him some all packaged for him. Then he came back and said, "I know of this great place to get a cerveza, I get off at 12:30, so I'll pick you up at 1 on my motorcycle." So true to form, we ask, "Why not?" and there was no good reason not to go. 
His motorcycle is really a Vespa scooter and he had one helmet, which he made me wear. 
So off we went to El Centro La Paz on a scooter that can be filled for 70 pesos. We got to the place, Ricardo told me to let him do the talking, let him pay, because once they see the gringo, the price goes up. We ordered a cerveza oscula (dark beer) and started talking. We talked about family and I shared my pictures of my children and he talked about his 18 year old son Diego who is in university now. We ordered an amazing dish that was served in a lava bowl that was muy caliente. It had cactus, shrimp, a spicy tomato base, onions, chirozo,  cheese and avocado. So amazing, I wish I knew the name. Then, we took off on the scooter to head down towards the end of the bay, Ricardo pulled off on a side road and found a stand on the side of the road, with a BBQ, a cart with two flat tires, and lots of flies. The food is called Almejas, the family will go fishing and clamming then serve up the best seafood the authentic Mexican way. Truly tasty, the spices and freshness was the opposite of what I was observing in a potentially dirty place. I said in Spanish, that this was excellent authentic Mexiacan food, Ricardo relayed my pleasure to the proprieter and they both lit up and I think gave us a great deal. All for less than $5. 

Some say this is the definition of cruising: repairing your boat in exotic places. Yes, it's somewhat true, but boats that sit in the marina rarely break. As we mentioned before, our autopilot (Otto) smoked about 2 hours after leaving Bahia Magdalena in large quartering seas. (When the wind is over your right shoulder and it rolls you, the boat wants to turn up into the wind.) Otto had to work really hard to keep us on course and that was too much to ask, I quite often reach down to feel the temp of the servo motor and most of the time it's pretty cool, that day I almost burned my hand. Then the smoke leaked out and it was over; the smell was ghastly. The remaining time we had to hand-steer or use our Monitor wind-vane, Claude. (Named after Claude Monet, the famous impressionistic French artist. We chose that name because the Monitor is much less accurate than Otto, who is very accurate and particular about the course, Claude is free-flowing and generally steers the course +/- 10 degrees) So when there is wind, the wind-vane works well, when we're motoring with a tail wind, it's not so much fun. Lynette and I had to do 2 hour watches because it was so tedious. 
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I was not able to find a Raymarine autopilot motor in Cabo San Lucas or in La Paz, both places boast really good marine supply and boat yards, but I could not find one. So I called Seattle Fisheries Supply and they had access to them. I paid extra freight and bought two motors. Our friends Kurt & Katie said, if one part breaks, buy two. Then I had to coordinate the parts delivery with our friends son, Peter, in Gig Harbor since they were coming down to Costa Baja for Christmas. It all worked well, Fisheries Supply delivered the parts and Peter threw them in his suitcase, I'm so grateful for friends. 
Along the same line, my phone decided to do a forced update between San Diego and Ensenada, which required the phone to activate with a Verizon cell tower, which there was a sever lack of in the ocean or in MX. After about 4 hours of calls with Verizon, Apple and everyone in between, I had to resort to sending my phone back to San Diego where my daughter Danielle could activate it. So we journeyed into town found DHL and a $50 bill to send it out of La Paz. It arrived a day early and missed my daughter, then she coordinated with DHL to deliver the next day and she took the day to work from home, but the delivery guy found it too hard to get into her apartment complex and did not deliver it. Finally the next day it was delivered. She activated it, then coordinated to have our same friends daughter who lives in San Diego to pick it up to take down for the Christmas in La Paz. So from Nov 18th till the 14th of Dec I've been without a phone. No texts, calls or all my cool apps. I struggled along with my iPad and Macbook but it was not very fun. (I know, first-world problems!) 
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I love getting things done, repairing things that have been broken for years, there is something about redeeming things and restoring them that is satisfying.