Day One: Friday, March 16: Border Crossing at Tecate to Ensenada

Border Crossing - No Waiting!

Having scouted Tecate the day before, and picked up some pesos and our FMTs (tourist visas), along with the route through town, crossing the border was quite easy. No waiting, just pulled through and right on through town. Tecate is definitely an old-style Mexican town – it is not a tourist town at all, so the feeling after crossing is immediately of being IN Mexico. The road took us around two sides of the lovely town square, with statues, trees, and fountains, and even a sidewalk café. There is a pretty steep hill (for an older RV pulling a Jeep, at least!) leaving town, and there are stop signs on the way up.

The roads in Baja are narrower, rougher, and have little to no shoulder. They do, however, have a lovely white line marking the right side of the lane, which is very helpful when trying to move as far to the right as possible to allow trucks, busses, and other RVs to pass in either direction. It is especially helpful since not only is there no shoulder, but there is usually a sharp drop off at the edge of the pavement on the other side of the white line of at least 6-12 inches – imagine the RV’s front tire going off a 12 inch edge at 40 miles/hour – not too pretty of a picture! The lanes are officially 9.5 feet wide (narrower than in the US), and the RV is 8.5 feet wide, not counting the mirrors, which stick out about a foot on both sides. So you might say driving in Baja is a white knuckle experience in an RV. Devin is doing all the driving – I am sure I would have taken us off a cliff on a “Curva Peligrosa” by now! He, on the other hand, is a very calm and level-headed driver. And very skilled – he’s like a draftsman in his ability to drive ON the white line without going over for mile after mile! But after the first day of driving, we BOTH had sweaty palms, and I am worried we’ll need to reupholster the arms of the passenger seat where my nails have dug in repeatedly!! Note to self: cut nails short before driving further!

The scenery leaving Tecate is quite nice – not that we could rip our eyes off the road to enjoy it much… but the sky was quite hazy, although it had been clear blue skies in Potrero north of the border. I think the Maquiladora zone in Tecate, plus the fact that some marine layer from the ocean had moved inland up the terrain to there, gave it hazy skies. A few miles south of town, passing over some mountains, and we were back into blue skies and open county. Occasional small villages all had “topes” to slow down traffic – like speed bumps, only steeper and bigger! At least most of these are well marked, and also have mini-topes leading up to the big ones, increasing in frequency as they get closer. We took those all very slowly, since you could hear every dish in our cabinets rattle on each one! Little ranchos dotted the countryside, and the road wound to and fro, over and around the hilly and mountainous terrain. All the dangerous curves are marked, not only with signs, but also with the sad little shrines to those that did not heed the warnings and died at those places. The roadside in Baja is dotted with these shrines up and down its length.

After a while, we came to Baja’s “Ruta de Vina” – or Wine Country Route. The Guadalupe Valley opened out in the mountains to vineyards and olive trees, and other orchards, but mostly grapes. The Ruta de Vina seemed more affluent than many areas, with large homes adjoining each vineyard. In some ways, it made me think that it must still be similar to the old days of the Haciendas, where the landowners were wealthy and employed the campesinos to work their fields. Today, at least, those campesinos have a chance to become landowners themselves, but as we have seen in many cultures throughout history, breaking out of poverty is much easier said than done. The third richest man in the world is now a Mexican, though – owner of TelCel and many other interests throughout Mexico – not only is he Mexican, he is a first generation Mexican whose family immigrated from Lebanon. Though the division between the haves and haves-nots down here is quite wide, the New World is still a land of opportunity for some!

We began to feel the air get cooler as we neared the coast, and with relief we merged onto the 4 lane Mex.1 as we entered Ensenada. It would be a short period of relief – Mex 1 is 2 lane highway the rest of the way down Baja, except for short stretches near cities such as Loreto and La Paz. Ensenada is a big city! And it has the biggest flag I’ve ever seen – Americans aren’t the only ones that do the huge flag thing – this Mexican flag in Ensenada, I think, may be bigger than any US flag I’ve been amazed by! There was quite a bit of construction in Ensenada, and we were detoured from the main highway, but eventually got back to it in time to make the turn off to the Estero Bay Resort.