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HOME Magazine | 11FALL | 2007 | OTOÑO www.destinomagazines.com 

“Boom!”

No, that’s not the sound o the wedding partyreworks sounding over the nowdemolished Hacienda Beach Resort,site o a new condo and hotel devel-opment.

“Boom” describes what’s happen-ing right now in La Paz. Just look around. Condo towers are going upand new marinas are being installed.

The highway to Todos Santos is beingenlarged and improved. The male-con now extends out toward Pich-ilingue and the hillsides are coveredwith surveyed lots and new homes.New houses are going up all over ourneighborhood.

Workers rom the mainland, at-tracted by the boom times, are ar-riving in increasingly larger numbers.You are more and more likely to heara Mexico City or other mainland ac-cent and not the accent o a Paceno.You may know this accent: a sing-song pronunciation and “swallowing”

o the s’s.

The Wall Street Journal  recentlypublished an article on living in LaPaz. House Hunters International , atelevision program on the Home andGarden channel has already airedone show rom La Paz and they haveanother one in the works. A produc-tion company is lming here or apresentation on, yes, CosmopolitanTV and a reporter aliated with amajor U.S. newspaper interviewedus or an article on the daily lie o retirees living in the Yucatan and inLa Paz. Major airlines have addedfights rom the U.S. over the past year. What do they know that may-be we don’t? And is this good or is it bad?

My partner and I had long plannedto retire to Mexico and had donea great deal o research. We lovedthe desert ater living, respectively,in Phoenix and Las Vegas or many

years. The desert is open, clear and,yes, even spiritual.

So, why not the southern Baja,

where the desert meets the sea?

Loreto? Too ew services. Cabo?Too much o a tourist town or ourtaste. Todos Santos? Beautiul, but more or surng than swimming and,again, too small. La Paz looked just right, with good hospitals, an accessi-ble airport, stores and services. Thiswas the Goldilocks decision.

Our adventure started a year agolast May when we spent a week in LaPaz. Ater only three days o watch-ing the amous purple sunsets romthe malecon surrounded by lov-ing, playul amilies and practicallydrawn to tears at the gentle beautyo the place,we made our decision;La Paz, here we come!

We sensed the beginning o theboom ater checking out real estateprices and talking to local expats. So,our two year plan became the twomonth plan. It was now or probablynever; prices were rising. We put a

down payment on a villa, returned tothe states and sold our home in LasVegas.

 We have lived in La Paz or overone year now. Would we move hereagain? Absolutely. “Nosotros ama-mos La Paz.” We love La Paz. Why?

There are lots o reasons.There are the obvious and usualsuspects. You’ll see them in the tour-ist brochures. There are magnicent,pristine beaches with gentle currents

  just minutes rom town. I you liketo sh, the waters are teeming withthem. A boat tour on a panga out tothe island sanctuary o Espiritu San-to and the adjacent islands makes orpure wonder. There’s a real down-town that is active, vibrant, and very

walkable, with an historic center, andthe malecon is world-class.

And developers obviously ndLa Paz attractive. You can’t swinga dead cat without hitting a work site or a new project. Could it bebecause o the relatively cheap landprices compared to Cabo? Can thisbe the last, undeveloped, substantialoutpost let in Baja Caliornia Sur?

  Why the increased access with the

rising number o plane fights? May-be it’s the baby boomers with moneywho crave the warm sun?

LA PAZ, CITY OF PEACE, GOES BOOM!!by J. Michael Sullivan 

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 We’re not quite sure the reasons but there is certainly something moresubtly seductive here that the o-

cial promotions o La Paz don’t quitecapture. What is it?

Let’s start with this; residents o Mexico City come here to vacation.These are olks with the means tovacation almost anywhere but theycome to La Paz. When we ask ourriends rom Mexico City why thisis so, they always speak o how calmand relaxed they eel here.

And, or a place considered to be

at the “end o the universe,” thereare a surprising number o tour-ists and residents rom all over Eu-rope; including one amily we got to know that was rom Slovenia andour neighbor who is rom Denmark.Leave it to the Europeans to know agreat place and a great bargain.

There’s a phenomenon here that we call the “La Paz” sleep. Ourriends rom the United States andCanada all talk about how they sleep

long and deeply at night ater therst ew days. “I haven’t slept likethis since I was a kid,” one riendsaid. Those who stay or more thana week even begin taking a siestain the aternoons. The pace here isleisurely. Folks don’t rush. This is agreat opportunity or Type A person-alities to practice a “Zen” attitude.

You can drive across town in twen-ty minutes, or even less, especially i 

you learn to use the back streets thelocals take. Access to excellent su-permarkets, such as CCC and Sori-ana, is easy. A quick run to the store

is really a quick run. And we liveonly ten minutes rom the airport;we North Americans who tend tosuer rom commuter trauma ap-preciate this.

Contrary to the belies o some,you don’t have to order urnitureand other goods rom Cabo or Gua-dalajara anymore. La Paz has goodurniture stores and galleries all overtown. Try either the Gallery de LaPaz or Gallery Colibri or high qual-

ity, and unique urniture and crats .Or try Ramos’, where we purchasedhotel-style beds and comortable,plump, upholstered seating or theliving room. You can set up a stylish,comortable household very easily.

In La Paz there’s nothing press-ing to do. There is a small anthro-pological museum, an aquarium anda snake zoo, the Serpentario, that areactually very interesting. The city

and our local universities sponsorcultural events. We attended theperormances o Cirque du Soleillast spring as part o the rst La PazInternational Art Festival.

But you won’t miss seeing them inthe way that you might i you didn’t rush to see the San Diego Zoo or theBritish Museum in London. Kickin’it is not only o.k. but the norm.

Hawkers o time shares are a miss-

ing species here. Store owners don’t accost you rom the doorways. Thereare very, very ew panhandlers. Thisis very much a middle class city with

the manners to go with it.Paceños are warm and welcoming.The expat community, estimatedat about our thousand, is the sameway. We’ve made more riends morequickly here than anywhere we havelived. For heaven’s sake, neighborsactually drop in or a visit.

And this may be considered a city,but it eels like a town. You almost always bump into someone that youknow when driving and walking.

The young people cruise along themalecon on weekend nights. Strang-ers greet you with a “buenas dias.”Friends always stop to greet eachother and chat.

Gringos who come here, to visit orlive, do so to sh, kayak, enjoy natureand just plain relax; Gringos don’t come here to “boogie down”. Anddid I mention the restaurants? Thereare many excellent restaurants here

in La Paz, with prices that are veryreasonable. We can honestly say that we’ve never had a bad meal and usu-ally the ood is superb. From SuperTacos downtown, with dirt cheap,yummy seaood tacos, to Campestreout toward the airport, with its eclec-tic menu and great ribs, you can eat well and not become impoverishedin the process.

So, here’s the obvious question;

will the boom spoil La Paz? We sayno, with our ngers crossed. We’rebetting on several things. No, it’snot the long history o boom-bust 

that La Paz has experienced over theyears, starting with the ailure o theblack pearl industry early last cen-tury.

Nor are we relying on the act that, as the state capital, there’s aguaranteed infux o tax money orthe development and maintenanceo inrastructure and provision o services. La Paz is not desperate ordevelopment money, merely very in-terested. There are actually planning

processes in place and no huge rush.Here’s why we have guarded op-

timism. The local government andcitizens have pushed back against rampant development several times.Just recently the mayor and an orga-nization o citizens have blocked thedevelopment planned or the Bal-andra area; a state park and a world-class jewel o a beach. Ecologically-minded citizens also pushed or the

preservation o the mangrove areason El Magote, even as the east end o this peninsula is undergoing devel-opment. And even in this develop-ment, the plan is to use “gray water”or the gol course.

Read the local newspapers andyou’ll see that the state govern-ment is spending increasingly largeamounts on the development o theinrastructure. The government hasalso set up task orces to address the

issues o aordable housing and o the training o local workers to meet the needs o the boom.

Estimates vary, but let’s assumethere are 300,000 residents in LaPaz. This number helps to insure acertain inertia that will inoculate thearea rom wide-spread “gringoiza-tion.” La Paz is a real Mexican city,not a tourist haven and we think thiswill continue to be true.

  We’ve talked to many buyers o properties here. While some are “in-vestors” and happy to see the appre-ciation o their holdings, even moresay that all they want is a wonderulplace to vacation and a place wherethey can retire eventually in ease andcomort. Many buyers do not planto “fip” their property but rather torelax, enjoy and maybe even to settlehere.

La Paz is still the city o peace,

even with the boom and we just loveit. The good part is the rich liestyle,the bad part is that you can’t stopprogress. And since you can’t stop it,you might as well enjoy the ride.

18 | HOME Magazine www.destinomagazines.com  FALL | 2007 | OTOÑO

LA PAZ Continued from page 11

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