play
We plunge underwater to observe habits of juvenile Zalophus californianus. Or, in the words of Ivan, our dive master extraordinaire, to play with youngsters. And play is what we try to do. The result is, to be honest, that we are being played with. Sea lions treat us as clumsy companions who cannot swim fast enough and have to be jolted into action by deftly applied bites. We develop various techniques to keep them from nibbling on our wet-suited bodies. It’s a good thing they seem to have preference for yellow, which means that our snorkels, fins and secondary regulators are in greater danger than our fingers.
fence
Canada? Germany? Poland? was the sequence Natalia was greeted by a street vendor who was trying to guess which country we were from. We were just across the Mexican border in Nogales and it was a bit surprising that he did not even try US. We decided to take it as a compliment. And we needed the compliment rather badly. Apparently we looked really sick. At least based on the frequency with which random strangers suggested we pay a visit to a pharmacy. Taxi and real Mexican food were also offered regularly but the most frequently we heard an assurance that they had what we were looking for.