All the way from Columbia!
February was the busiest month to date for Baja Malas, leading 4 workshops in El Sargento/La Ventana, Todos Santos and Cabo San Lucas, and serving 50 beautiful humans from Columbia, Mexico, the US and Canada!
We started off the month at one of my favorite boutique hotels and retreat centers, Casa Tara in El Sargento leading 20 yoga retreat guests of I Belong Studio all the way from Columbia. When we scheduled the workshop, the retreat host, Annie Ferro, wasn’t sure how many of her guests spoke English, or how well they spoke so I decided to prepare to lead the entire workshop in Spanish! Thank goodness for my daughter, Hannah, who studied Spanish in Spain a couple of years ago and speaks much better Spanish than I do. Because she is also currently living in Todos Santos and assisting me with the workshops, she took on the challenge of translating the first portion of the workshop which teaches about the significance of malas. I was then going to trust her to help translate throughout the workshop as needed.
However, when we arrived to set up, I was relieved to learn that everyone spoke English quite well. I know - it’s kind of lame. I mean, afterall, we are in Mexico and should be speaking Spanish wherever we go, but that’s not our reality and I suppose what makes living in Baja rather easy for many American and Canadian expats. It is becoming increasingly easy to navigate around without being fluent.
When we scheduled the workshop for 2:30-6:30pm, I failed to realize that the yoga shala overlooking the Sea of Cortez didn’t offer bright lights in the evening, which made finishing our malas quite interesting. Fortunately, everyone had their mobile phones handy to use the flashlight and hold for others to see. I will remember to double check that for all workshops that go into the evening/darker hours.
For this workshop, we used stones that are inspired by the colors of Casa Tara and the Sea of Cortez: white turquoise, wood grain jasper & green turquoise.
Hannah and I loved the energy and enthusiasm emanating from this group. They were so positive and fun. I usually play some chill music during the workshops, but after a couple of hours, we let them take over the music and things got more lively playing some Colombian Latin vibes.