Here Comes the Sun!
Once we turned the corner at Cabo San Lucas away from the mighty Pacific, which hadn’t been very gentle with us, and were 5 miles into the Sea of Cortez, it got hot. Way hot and humid. Samba started panting and we started sweating.
It suddenly was summer. For some reason I was not prepared for that. I brought shorts and tunics and had upgraded my bikini collection, but I still it shocked me. Samba got a serious haircut last night and continuing the next morning. There is way more hair to take out and I suspect it will be ongoing. Po0r Samba. We just get undressed, drench ourselves with cold water from the dock hose, try to stay cool and don’t move much.
Imagining that it will be even hotter during the summer, I cannot right now. I know we will get acclimated in time, but from fleece to bikini in less than an hour is even fast for jet set fast.
I am not complaining mind you. We chose this. A small boat. without air conditioning, 4 small fans. a tiny freezer unit to make fridge. Ya, ya, conviction. Mine has been tested already more than once on this trip down Baja. Sweat, I find, is a natural coolant, if there is a tiny bit of breeze. And a cold beer in the fridge. Just kidding. But again what is conviction worth, if it falters at the slightest snag?
We sleep in the cockpit, take showers on deck with a solar shower and hose Samba down several times a day. I heard that dogs don’t sweat and that their glands are located between the pads of their paws. I guess to cool their feet, but what about the rest of their bodies? Samba will learn to like to swim, as we will jump in the water to cool off.
Best is to behave like people who live here and how they adapt to the heat and learn how they adjust their schedules to it. In Italy nobody would be expected to work between noon and 3 or 4 in the afternoon, in Spain people eat late at night and have little snacks and a drink early evening while their bodies are cooling off from a hot day. Italy and France go to their respective seaside in the summer and the countries effectively shut down in August, because everyone has left the cities.
I remember arriving in Milano with a friend in her VW Bug in late July of 1979 and there were only few souls around. After getting a couple of Fiorucci outfits, the store was still open for a couple days, we drove to the seaside. We visited Cinqueterre and other beach cities along the Mediterranean, slept on the beaches or in cheap hour hotels and went back to the cities at the end of August with the rest of the Italians.
What a concept to adjust to it and slow down instead of arming yourself with artificial, and environmentally polluting I might add, cooling devises just to keep powering through. Compared with the Europeans and, what I can tell so far, the Mexicans, Americans got it all wrong. Jobs don’t provide a quality of life. Life does and the job must follow. Granted that Americans earn more money, but it also runs their lives.
A siesta or nap in the afternoon has its place. My grandfather took one everyday and it didn’t halt his success. Stressing and rushing is not worth the results, isn’t it? Do as the Romans do, so Siesta it is.
