Covid, Box Stores and Flowers

Sunday 24th May 2020:
I woke up feeling quite ill, I had a bad nights sleep and now I had a serious headache. I climbed into the cockpit for some fresh air and had my morning banana and toast & coffee, I could tell I wasnt right, so I ran through my checklist of Covid symptoms: Coughing, no, just the runny nose as usual. Taste & Smell, well that banana didn’t really taste at all, and the coffee was just like hot water. So Covid Rovers 1, Hypochondriac Athletic 0. However many people will confirm my coffee doesn’t taste that good. Breathing, well pretty rubbish really, quite laboured, Covid Rovers 2, Hypochondriac Athletic 0. Better take some readings.
Temperature now 38.5 degrees, in the fever range, pulse 150, double my normal rate, blood pressure through the roof. Looks like Covid is just getting penalty shots now. My breathing is getting harder so I head below and lie down for a bit. While I’m lying down I check out the emergency covid phone number for La Paz and have it handy. After an hour I check my temperature again, it continues to rise nearly reaching 40 deg C, I reach that blissful point where the hallucinations start. So I’m now convinced the Covid has an Anfield style lead over the hypochondriacs, so I put in call in to Dr Reddin in Ireland. He’s not overly concerned and manages to reassure me. I’m lying face down, that really does make the breathing easier.
I pop online to the Mexican Covid reporting site to see how that works just in case things get worse. I fill in the questionnaire, question number 2 being, “How will you pay for any care, insurance details etc”, I can see why the reported number of cases here might be a bit lower than expected. Anyway, they give the team a big boast and tell me to go away and stop being a big girls blouse. Suddenly the team are revived, Covid Rovers 2, Hypochondriac Athletic 2.
You don’t want to know the details of the next few hours, but I lose a lot of weight quickly. Then I sleep for the rest of the day. When I wake, my temperature is down, and my blood pressure is dropping slightly. I can also breathe a lot better. I go back to bed and doze for the rest of the day until nightime when I sleep well.

Monday:
I spend the morning being very lazy, my temperature is normal again, as is my blood pressure and pulse. I’m thinking I either had food poisoning or a touch of some bug. I’ve had nothing to eat since Saturday and I don’t have anything in, so in the afternoon I pop along to the supermarket to get some bread. Passing along the aisles I spot my old friend the Cervaza cero, this poor bottle has been hidden somewhere, and is now up for grabs. I pop him in my trolley if only to give him a little trip to the till and back. I’m not optimistic.

The beer bottle almost makes it, until the Mexican checkout lady wishes it ‘good luck’ in English and it replies with a ‘thank you’ (if you don’t get that reference, you need to watch this ). Back to the camp for this guy!

I’m exhausted cycling back to the boat, but can’t help noticing lots of taco stalls open, and kids playing in the park. I wonder if the cummings effect is reaching this far.
Later I login with Arturo for my Spanish lesson, but struggle to follow much.

Tuesday:
Still feeling rubbish, but eating again now.

Wednesday:
It’s really hot now, so I throw another canopy over the bow. I think it helps a little. Sod all else happens today

Thursday & Friday are mostly lost, except I have to attend a conference call with some systems guys in Belgium, it’s the end of the day on a Friday for them, and I expect they have beer, chips and mayonnaise calling their name, but it’s 7am for me, and I have to look like a smart computer engineer representing a multinational organisation, worse they want the meeting on ‘Skype for Business’ which I cant get working. As it turns out I’m more together than them, the meeting goes well, they get all the action points, and I get to make breakfast. Later I do some reading and studying of openPlotter, a system I’m looking at implementing on the new boat computer. I think I may have a solution to my intermittent autopilot problem by getting the PI to drive the tillerpilot connected to the monitor windvane.

Saturday arrives and I realise I’m just not getting enough exercise, I’m putting on weight, and given that I’m not eating much, that can only mean I’m not using any calories up. So I decide to head off to the out of town shopping estate, or big box stores, as the Americans call them. I plan to buy cable and connectors from Home Depot (B&Q) and rig up some propper LED lighting in the cockpit. It dawned on me that the PI computer can do PWM lighting control over the LEDs to give me a mood effect, perhaps some AI can predict my mood, but I think I’m getting ahead of myself, first let’s get the wire.

I fail to get the wire, and the connecters, it’s not that they didn’t have some wire, more I hated the whole thing of being in this cavernous store, that could have been anywhere on the planet, and you wouldn’t know based on the store itself. I decided there must be plenty of small ferreterias in town, family businesses that I would rather give my money too.
My trip to the store hadn’t been a good experience. I chose this destination partly as it’s a long cycle away (18km round trip) and the exercise would be good, plus if I was stopped, I had a good excuse for being there, food shopping is allowed and many gringos go to the big box stores for their supplies.

In our travels from Malaysia to here we have seen many modern shopping developments, in many countries but they all generally come down to two types: The Mall, and, The Out of Town Big Box Estate.
The picture below was taken on route, I expect this is what the countryside here would have looked like in every direction for the last tens of thousands of years, certainly back to when humans first arrived here. In fact It would have looked like this up until a few years ago.

First the road is built, nothing against roads, and the major highways in Baja California have allowed the area to thrive where it was once, only a few decades ago, quite isolated. Many of the resorts down here were very exclusive as the only way to access them back in the 50s and 60s and earlier was by private plane, some of the resorts still have their airstrips that were used by partying celebrities popping down from Holywood for a secluded break.

But these sections of the road are unloved, nobody wants to live next to the box stores, and at some point the box stores estates will look old and faded and a new estate will pop up on the land next to them. So acres of scorched fields sit awaiting that time. I expect the locations are chosen based on the cheapest land available outside of the city.

Acres of car parks surround these buildings and look quite odd when the customers aren’t allowed in. Most of this estate isn’t open as it’s deemed non essential, 10 pin bowling, designer shops, cinemas etc.

If the covid disaster lasts for another year, I expect much of this estate may not reopen. In town, many small businesses will struggle and may fold, but the buildings have performed under many guises before and will find a new life. the city should still be attractive but these estates might slip easily into a dystopian world, it’s hard to love this much poured concrete.

I expect land must have been cheap, and some developer imagined being on the doorstep of Walmart and Home Depot would be a selling point, as a housing development has sprung up over the highway, nestled in the scrub.

This doesn’t feel like progress to me.

Sunday:
I decide to capitalise on my new exercise urge and head off on the bike again. This time in the opposite direction of the ‘out of town box stores’ instead into the heart of La Paz. It’s Sunday, the churches are closed and I expect it to be quiet, however off the main malecon, the streets are busy, quite a lot on stores are open and I notice people queuing at the barbers. I need a haircut, but I’m not ready to get in line for one just yet.
The flowering plants are lovely, I think a lot of it is called Bougainvillia, and the cacti are looking great with the palm trees. I have put some of the pictures of the streets around downtown below.

Back at the marina I snap this guy who seems to have made this spot his home. I would call it a heron, but I’m not sure.

Paul Collister.