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Archive for October, 2007

PHOTO 1: Over these, many seasons, some of the best photos, some of the best catches, some of the best times have come from these two guys. Mitch Chavira and and Charlie “Stix” McGee both from Encinitas CA. Usually, they are with Mitch’s son, Cole, who lately has a habit of outfishing both of them, but this past week, the two amigos came solo and slammed big dorado and tuna. Both guys have caught just about every fish in the area except the elusive wahoo. Well, this past week, Charlie got his north of Cerralvo Island. Mitch will have to wait! Check out Bob Marley looking at the catch!

EARLY WEEK HIGH WINDS KICK IT UP BUT THE HOT BITE FOR TUNA AND DORADO CONTINUES TO RIP FOR MUERTOS BAY ANGLERS!

The La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for Oct. 27, 2008

PHOTO 2: Landon Frazier is ust 10-years-old from northern CA, just about outfished dad and the rest of the group this week with some of the biggest fish almost daily. He had never done this before, but over 3 days he now has “the bug!” Here he’s standing on the beach at Muertos Bay holding his biggest bull dorado. Along with the tuna bite we’ve had for over a month, dorado have now moved in with some fairly significant numbers with most fish running 10-30 pounds.

PHOTO 3: I know, I have Mitch’s photo above with the wahoo, this is such a well-taken photo, I just had to put it in the report. Mitch is a regular poster boy. For our La Paz boats, it was literally impossible to fish early in the week with the strong winds, but as the winds abated, the dorado bite came back nicely with fish back at the SE end of Espiritu Santo Island.

PHOTO 4: This is how a day SHOULD be…all smiles and bent rods! That’s Sergio up at the bow and Bob amidships both with tuna at the ends of their lines. They are fishing just yards offshore at San Juan near Muertos Bay. They had limits of tuna in a short time! It’s not rocket science. The tuna have grown larger up to about 20-25 pounds and are just around the corner from where we launch the boats. Basically, if you pin a sardine on the hook, toss it overboard and wait to get bit! Easy!
PHOTO 5: Ray and Otha show off a few of their nice yellowfin tuna on the beach. This is a nicer grade of football tuna. Undoubtedly, this is the best tuna bite we’ve had in years with a tuna bite ongoing now since about August but seeming getting better and better!

PHOTO 6: Derick Tagawa, Mark Kojima and Randy Nakayama pose here with favorite captain Adolfo “Yofo” next to a nice day of fishing. Lots of talk of sashime on the beach! They had two days like this and came back early to the beach each day plugged.
PHOTO 7: One of our long-time best amigos, Roland “Wink” Winkler made it back to see us after many years. Wink is in the middle flanked by Sergio and Bob. Wink’s never lets his wheelchair get in the way of a good day fishing and is one of the most fanatic of fishermen. He fished until his “arms were tired.”



PHOTO 8: Like I said, the tuna are getting bigger. Some qualify as something a bit more than “football” status. Duffy Shropshire holds up one of the larger sluggers from this week. These fish are literally minutes or yards in front of the beach. Live or dead bait does the trick. Baits are really small so if you’re coming down, small hooks are preferred. This week, I was using #1 and even #2 size live bait hooks. The only problem was when dorado came plowing through, the small hooks sometimes didn’t set well in the dorado’s mouth and we lost a few fish!

PHOTO 9: Scott Torney came down with mom, Virginia and dad, Jack long enough to squeeze in a day of fishing and shows off this nice bull dorado. We never really got the huge bulls we got last season, but there’s not shortage of mahi either! I’d say the average bull right now is about 20 pounds.
PHOTO: 10: Captain Jorge stands here with our Alaska amigo, Rod Brown, who makes the pilgrimage each year from Wrangell, AK! According to Rod, he and his brother Jeff had one of their best trips ever with more tuna and dorado than they knew what to do with so they were really popular with captains, and everyone else giving away much of their fish.


PHOTOS 11 and 12: Marty Johnson of Atascadero CA has been on these pages many times as well as the other publications that I write for. He’s one of the most enthusiastic fishermen you will ever see. Marty can fish with the best of ’em even though he hasn’t been fishing many years. He took one day off this past week to use his flyrod and fish inshore in La Paz Bay. This is just a sample of what he did with his flyrod and spinning rod. It was literally a fish a cast…sometimes more as one fish would spit the fly and another would quickly grab it up. Marty described it as one of his best fishing days ever. Originally he thought the fish he is holding was a snook. However, when we checked, it’s a rare weakfish, a species that is rarely caught. In the rack of fish in the photo below, you will see weakfish, barracuda, triggers, jacks and sierra.
THE FISHING REPORT

I guess I could just let the photos above do the talking. We sent alot of amigos home this week with stuffed ice chests! The week didn’t start like that. Those winds that hammered S.California also had an effect on us as well.
Heck…talk about winds…for those of you who have visited us in the past imagine waves big enough to surf on in La Paz Bay! Coming from the north, the waves were large enough to get the malecon (waterfront road in town) pretty wet! Obviously, we weren’t going to send anyone out in that junk.
So, we moved all our La Paz folks to fish with our guys who were already reserved t fish out’ve Muertos Bay. As you can see from the photos, it was a pretty good move. No one lost any days of fishing and not only did the fish cooperate, but on most days they exploded! Some days boats were back on the beach with anglers too tired or too plugged with fish to continue on.
The tuna bite is the mainstay, but the fish are getting a few pound larger every week. I put a few on the scale this week that went 25-32 pounds which is a nice grade of yellowfin…hardly a monter, but hardly a football either and strong enough and stubborn enough to make for a great drag screaming fight! I had alot of guys on light tackle this week who reported worrying about getting spooled on the smaller equipment! The tuna are inching their way south to an area near and in front of the friut loop house on the hill outside of Muertos to just outside the mouth of the bay.
Sometimes, it’s one-stop shopping. As you fish the tuna, here come the dorado! Good numbers of dorado are now mixing it up with the tuna also! In fact, if you only wanted to pull on dorado and nix the tuna that is entirely possible right now. The dorado aren’t huge either, but a 20-30 pound bull can put the hurt on just about anyone!
If you’re coming down, bring small live bait hooks as smal, as a #1 or #2. The sardines are eenie-meenie! They still work great, but if your hook is too big, you’ll impale your bait and kill it before it has a chance to get eaten!
Also, bring flurocarbon leader…25 and 30 pound fluro is about right!
As for other species, they’re here too. Just no one is fishing for them. I’m writing this from the Giggling Marlin Restaurant at Muertos Bay waiting for our boats to come back and as I look down on the waters only about 20 yards from my table, 30 pound roosterfish are crushing and tormenting a school of sardines. As well, we’ve had marlin, sailfish and wahoo hookups this week.

That’s my story!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International La Paz
Phone: (626) 333-3355
FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: Carr. a Pichilingue KM 5, Numero 205, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico

“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try.”

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PHOTO 1: Wahoo showed up again this past week. Quite a few bites. Some got to the boat and were lost. Others were fought and lost. This is one 50 pound class ‘Hoo that didn’t get away! Our amigo, Gama “King” Flores from California was fishing in the tuna schools off Punta Perrico. He wasn’t even fishing for wahoo. He had a live sardine on the hook. No wire! This big skinny bit his 30 pound string and the fight was on! Gama won. Other fish this week hit black and purple CD 18 size Rapalas as well as a few of the dark Marauders.

MUERTOS BAY AND SOUTH CERRALVO EXPLODE WITH TUNA AND DORADO AS THE GREAT FALL BITE OF 2007 CONTINUES!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for Oct. 20, 2007

PHOTO 2: Shane Vroman was here in May and was all over the big roosterfish. He came back this week and spanked the dorado and tuna. Shown here with some of the fish he and his amigo, Mike Berkowitch caught at Muertos Bay. The waters have been teeming with fish now for several weeks and no idea how long it will last, but bait has been close, then within minutes you could be in the middle of foaming fish. Shane and Mike said that several times they were in thick schools of tuna and dorado.

PHOTO 3: We had a bunch of great folks from Utah this past week. Dr. Bob Gray on the left stands on the beach with some of his yellowfin tuna. On the far side is his daughter, 22-year-old Tiffany Gray on her first salt water fishing trip. Steve Davis is next to her and Grant Glather is next to Dr. Bob. There was no shortage of tuna with most fish in the “football” category of 10 to 20 pounds, but just alot of fun to catch as fish were often coming out of the water and boiling around the boats.

PHOTO 4: Unlike previous weeks when Muertos Bay and Las Arenas were almost 90 percent yellowfin tuna, more dorado were taken like this nice bull held up by Tiffany Gray who came with her dad and amigos from Utah and Alaska. It was almost one-stop shopping some days. If you went to one spot, it was non-stop tuna. When you had your fill you simply moved the panga and caught dorado or roosterfish or went hunting for wahoo or billfish.
PHOTO 5: Santiago (“My friends call me Jim”) Garcia from Orange Co., California is given an assist from popular Captain Manuel Archangel. Santiago sent two day fishing for tuna and two days chasing only dorado and were not disappointed. Most of the doroad were in the 10-20 pound class like the tuna, but great fighters. However, there were larger bulls seen and lost. With everyone concentrating on the tuna, often the buoys…popular dorado hangouts were unmolested by boat traffic and were just waiting for someone to throw a bait in the water.

PHOTO 6: Dr. Blaine Austin from Utah is one of our frequent amigos and always does well. He was another of our Utah friends who came to visit this past week. He fished La Paz one windy day and then fished Las Arenas/Muertos with his daughter Jan and Sara where they had a banner time on the tuna and came in early.
PHOTO 7: Dave “Poolman” Baker from Huntington Beach CA (The O.C.), stuff an ice chest or two with his fish fillets after spending 4 days hammering the fish at Muertos Bay with Captain Victor. One day as he was on his way in, only minutes from the beach, this nice dorado whacked his line and was taken. The fish is so fresh, check out the incredible blue colors on it’s flank that were still shimmering.

PHOTO 8 – It’s a long way from Canada to Baja, Mexico, but Andrew Fitzel made the trek to find out what it’s like to fish in shorts and a t-shirt! Weather this week was perfect with daytime temps in the low to mid-90’s with very little humidity and water temps right about 85!
PHOTO 9; Callie Petersen has been visiting us since our earliet days here. She and her husband, Bruce, have been good friends of Tailhunter for many years. They used to live in Orange Co. California but now own a big spread in S. Dakota (or is it North Dakota?). Callie always does well with her fishing holding up a big-time bull dorado she got that blew up a sardine next to the boat.

PHOTO 10: As the week went on some of the tuna got a bit bigger, but size didn’t matter to some anglers. One of the neatest guys you will encounter, Roger Kunz, on the left is a good as they come. A Korean War Vet, he came with his cane and an attitude that he was gonna go out and hang fish like everyone else. What a gamer! Here, his nephew Marlon Kunz, gives a hand in holding up a nice grade yellowfin tuna. By the end of the week, some 30 and 40 pound fish were showing up.
PHOTO 11: You’ve been waiting for them! Yes, the big squid showed up this week briefly and it remains to be seen if this is going to be the start of a run! Several of the hug squigglies were hung and they were big ranging from 50-70 pounds! This one is being held by Santa Barbara resident Mark Trafelski.

PHOTO 12: We had friends from all over this week. Jeff Brown has fished with us before and its always a pleasure havng this amigo from chilly Minnesota come see us and have hm enjoy the sun. Here with Captain Marcos from our La Paz fleet, Jeff holds up several dorado. The fishing on the La Paz side was largely dependent on how strong the north winds were blowing, but the smaller dorado seem to be moving out and larger dorado coming in stronger.

PHOTO 13: Self-explanatory!

THE FISH REPORT

What another incredible week of fishing, especially for our anglers that fished out of Muertos Bay/ Las Arenas. Undoubtedly, this is a late season bite to remember!
It has been ages since I have seen tuna fishing like this around here. Talk about “fishy waters!” I think there must be a line of tuna and other species stretching from the channel between Cerralvo Island past the Arenas lighthouse; over to Muertos Bay then down to Los Frailes on the lower East Cape because the area is just plugged with fish.
The cool thing is that some of these gamefish are literally only casting distance from shore. Imagine going out 100 yards fronm the beach and tuna are coming out’ve the water for the chummed baits! Imagine motoring 5 minutes off the beach and finding yourself in the middle of a school of hungry dorado that are slashing each other trying to get anything thrown in the water!
That’s the way it has been the last few weeks and this past week, it only seemed to get better!
In addition to the packs of football tuna, dorado started moving in as well as sailfish and marlin. You never had to go far or you could literally pick a species then when you were tired go find something else to catch.
This isn’t rocket science either. Take your rod. Get a hook. Put a bait on it. Put it in the water. BOOM! You’re on. Just don’t drop the rod in the water like several guys did this week.
Fish are numerous, but not really really big, but nonetheless if you’re on light tackle can mean hours of mayhem. However, as the week progressed, the tuna started to eat steroids or something. The ten pounders turned to 25’s and 30’s. Same with the dorado. The larger bulls were getting hooked.
Several of our guys fought sailfish on light tackle and got beat up. When the sails came around again, they pulled their baits out’ve the water and were having one of that!
Quite a few or our anglers would get limits of fish so fast this past week that the biggest issue becaue what to do with the rest of the day. Many came right up onto the beaches where the roosterfish have again shown up and offered some great light tackle site fishing where you could see the big dorsal fins slash the surface.
Lastly, looks like the big sqiud have finally shown up! I don’t know how long they will be here, but if you are coming down you might want to pack one of those big heavy squid jigs in your pack. The squid were 50-70 pounds.
For those of our anglers who fished La Paz, it was good. Not great, but good. Some days there were problems with bait but the biggest issue was the north winds making things choppy and uncomfortable. The seasons are changing and no way to tell if we’ll be in winter mode fishing soon. Dorado were the mainstay and how you did depended on whether you found the school or not in the chop. If you found the school it could be crazy. If not, then you dinked for 3-5 dorad per day. But…the nice thing was that the mahi are growing bigger so more larger fish hit the fish boxes!
Looks like another nice week on the way!
That’s my story!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International La Paz
Phone: (626) 333-3355
FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: Carr. a Pichilingue KM 5, Numero 205, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico
“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try.”

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PHOTO 1: The week started off nervously as strong north winds came barreling down on us forcing us to cancel some boats, but with each passing day, the fishing came back stronger. Las Arenas continued to kick out the tuna. Here, Mark Stoller from N. California holds a 25 pound class yellowfin off Muertos Bay.

HIGH WINDS GIVE US A SCARE BUT TUNA COME RAGING BACK ALONG WITH DORADO AS WINDS CALM DOWN FOR GREAT WEATHER AND GREAT FISHING!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for Oct. 14, 2007

PHOTO 2: Jillene Steven formerly of San Diego, but now living in La Paz fished for about 2 hours putting limits of yellowfin tuna aboard in short order with all fish between 10 and 20 pounds. It wasn’t complicated fishing as the fish were more than willing to eat a sardine on a hook sometimes as soon as it hit the water! Jill also got a few pargo as well.

PHOTO 3: Lest you think that we only have tuna hitting, Johnny Drucker, who just moved from Oregon to Redondo Beach CA was on his first trip down this past week and surely did get tuna, but he also got this nice bull dorado. Dorado are definitely in the area but so much focus has been on the tuna. However, refusing to be left out, the dorado schools sometimes maraud right through the tuna schools wacking everything in sight!

PHOTO 4: Hiding behind the nice bull dorado being held up by Captain Archangel, Steve Laurentis was also on his first trip and could not have done any better. He slayed fish daily, but this nice bull off Punta Perrico was the topper.

PHOTO 5: Seal Beach resident Lloyd Layne has been with us many many times since our first days here in La Paz. He never fails to do well. Many folks think there’s no roosters this late in the season, but it’s mostly because no one is fishing for them! Lloyd took a day off from tuna and dorado and went after roosters all day in Muertos Bay. He caught and released 15 roosters of varying sizes!

PHOTO 6: Ray Chow and his son, Nathan, are also old amigos of ours. I lost count of how many tuna they caught over 4 days of fishing, but the fish they hold here are a good example of the type of football yellowfin we’re getting right now. The fish are in a wide arc between the Arenas lighthouse and the mouth of Muertos so you could literally be in fish 3 minutes from leaving the beach once y0u have bait!
PHOTO 7: These are some special friends, Gary and Sheila Olsen from Utah. I could not get Sheila from smiling from ear-to-ear. She had never done anything like this but spent 10 days with us taking in just about everything La Paz had to offer. However, she also fished for 4 days and simply hammered the fish. Here, Gary, Sheila and I pose next to a day’s fishing in Muertos Bay.

PHOTO 8: OK…you know they’re here! This is a shot of a mako shark off the transom of skipper Juan Chuy’s boat. It was hooked by Tracy Maybank of S.California who must have hooked just about every pelgaic species we had to offer during 2 days of fishing. That’s quite a feat. However, even better was the fact that Tracy released almost all his fish including this shark! Good for him.

PHOTO 9 – Al Tesoro and his son-in-law Troy were with us for 3 days of fishing this week. They hoiste a few of their yellowfin tuna as well. Like so many others this week, it was easy to lose count of the fish but I know we sure put alot in the freezer for them. Using a little 25 pound flurocarbon was a nice tip and when the fish went down, changing to dead bait or live bait with a small rubber core sinker kept the fish biting.

THE FISHING REPORT

Well, amigos…what started with me cringing and standing on the Las Arenas Beach watching 6 foot breakers crashing down turned into a pretty good week after all!
I thought surely the fish gods were out to get me by sending in strong north winds many weeks too early and forcing me to cancel about 20 boats we had going out not to mention disappointing alot of anglers who had counted on going out. When the winds are that strong, it simply is not safe to put the small pangas out and try to get them out through the surf. So, we turned and drove back to La Paz. Looking at the weather forecast showed nothing but north wind all week. Not good!
Well, as it turned out yes…the winds blew, but with each passing day, it got better and better. So did the fishing!
By the end of the week we were praying for a little breeze and some guys laughing grumbled that the fishing was “too good” and we were done “too fast!”
Seriously, the best tuna bite in years continued right off Muertos Bay. I’m not kidding that withing minutes of leaving the beach, you could be thick into the yellowfin tuna. This has been on-going now for over a month! The fish are only “football grade” 10-20 pounders, but alot of fun on light tackle and voracious at times so that boats were limited by mid-morning and looking for something else to chase! Sardines fished live or dead were the hot ticket.
Looking for other fish, dorado would sometimes scoot through the tuna schools as well as sailfish. Inshore, chumming along the beaches often brought roosters or jacks that could be alot of fun for a few hours.
For La Paz, as well, once the winds died down, it was business as usual. The fish weren’t big, but if you hit the right spots, the dorado bite as fairly solid. Most boats hooked 4-10 dorado per day, releasing the smaller fish then chasing around to find others. A few times, dead seal and whale carcasses were found floating between the islands and swimming beneath were all the dorado you could want.
The hardest thing is keeping our La Paz anglers interested. Sometimes you could nick and plink all day and get discouraged, but I keep telling the folks that, “you’re just one bait away from the next big fish!” Well, so often, right at the end, the boat and skipper find the spot and it’s pandemonium!
Looking forward to another good week! You have one too!
That’s my story!
Jonathan
Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355
FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: Carr. a Pichilingue KM 5, Numero 205, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico
“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try.”

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PHOTO 1: Just another day on the beach. This was typical of catches thist past week with a good batch of fun football tuna and a smattering of breezing dorado. Jeff Sakuda and Marianne Sugawara from S. California come down 2 or 3 times a year and were worried they would not catch enough tuna. This rack of fish came in about 90 minutes of actual fishing! Las Arenas was red hot most of the week until Northern winds kicked in and shut things down late.

TUNA BITE IS EPIC AS RODS BEND AT LAS ARENAS WITH DORADO HIGHLIGHTS BUT NORTHERN WINDS LATE IN WEEK THREATEN TO TURN OFF BEST BITE OF THE YEAR!

La Paz / Las Arenas Fishing Report for Oct. 7, 2007

PHOTO 2: Zach Smith and Dave Deter strike the pose! Yellow”fun” tuna again took up residence in a spot just off the beach between the Arenas lighthouse and Punta Perrico. You had to be REALLY bad not to catch fish this past week. The fish would go like maddogs on the flylined sardines simply dropped over the side!

PHOTO 3: Pete Eby from Cleveland holds up his first-ever fish…a nice grade yellowfin tuna. You didn’t have to be a vet to land fish this week. The basic requirement was just don’t drop the rod into the water. These yellowfin would go on just about any boat tossed in the water and best of all, the fish were literally only about 100 yards from shore!
PHOTO 4: Speaking of veterans, two San Diegans, Don Melucci and Mike Foster come down every year. Their first day, they got hit by the tuna as well. Here they are standing on Las Arenas beach with the first day catch. If you had a bait in the water, you were bit. Most of the fish were football sized yellowfin between 10 and 20 pounds this week.

PHOTO: 5: Vern Maxwell from Pittsburgh PA holds up his first ocean fish. It’s a bull dorado. Fluries of dorado would often jet through the tuna schools and were a highlight of the good tuna fishing with most boats getting a shot at dorado without having to move off the tuna honey-hole!
PHOTO 6 : John Pastorello of Fullerton CA surveys some of his dorado catch taken on the La Paz side. Dorado continued to be the general catch for our La Paz fleet, but there were also some wahoo taken again as well as striped marlin, blue marlin and sailfish. The dorado this year are not nearly as big as the toads we got last year but the fish are still a fun 10-30 pounds on the average with lots of smaller ones surprisingly still around.

PHOTO 7: Even THIS guy can catch fish sometimes! They let all kinds of crazy people on the beach when the fish are biting.

PHOTO 8 : Frequent La Paz angler, Eric Zimbler holds up one of the larger tuna caught this week of about 25 pounds.

THE FISH REPORT

I am sure this is sounding like a broken record, but the tuna this past week was awfully good again! I mean…limits in an hour if you found the spot. Boats were sometimes done by 10 a.m. and were out of bait or had to go find some other species of fish to molest!
The hot spot again was Las Arenas along the shallow ridge right off the beach between the Arenas lighthouse and Punta Perrico. The best bite was near Perrico where sardines and no weight did the trick and tuna foamed and rods bent!
Fortunately, without much effort, most boats also had shots at dorado as well. Often flurries of other species would shoot through the tuna and anglers found themselves surrounded by dorado or the occasional billfish that went wolfing down all the chum in the water then suddenly found itself hooked up.
Along the beaches, plenty of activity as well. Roosters and jacks were great fun on the light tackle and for the flyfishers who could be seen bent and rods screaming up along the rocks and beaches.
For our La Paz boats, steady if not spectacular action. Dorado were again the mainstay and most boats took 4-7 mahi/day. Nothing banner but strong steady action most days with the chance to go ballistic if you hit the right spot at the right time. Everyone goes home with fish!
Side note…as I write this, the northern winds have arrived. Usually, this heralds the change of season. Summer is over and we start to transition to cooler waters and temps. The northerns were strong enough to keep us off the water today with dangerous condtions. Hopefully, this is just a little blow and not a long consistent wind. We’ll keep you posted. If it blows all week, water and air temps will surely drop and fishing very likely changes.
That’s my story!
Jonathan

Jonathan Roldan’s

Tailhunter International
Phone: (626) 333-3355
FAX: (626) 333-0115
U.S. Office: 3319 White Cloud Dr., Suite A, Hacienda Hts. CA 91745
Mexico Office: Carr. a Pichilingue KM 5, Numero 205, La Paz, Baja Cal Sur, Mexico
“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try.”

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