The Western Flyer is about to leave La Paz, and Steinbeck writes:
“We were to sail in the early morning, and that night we walked a little in the dim-lighted streets of La Paz. And we wondered why so much of the Gulf was familiar to us, why this town had a “home” feeling. We had never seen a town which even looked like La Paz, and yet coming to it was like returning rather than visiting. Some quality there is in the whole Gulf that trips a trigger of recognition so that in fantastic and exotic scenery one finds oneself nodding and saying inwardly, “Yes, I know.”
And still it seems that way to me.