We’d set an alarm for 1:30am to see what high tide looked like. When the phone made a noise, we groggily rolled over to see that the highest waves were at least a few feet away. We would be fine. In the actual morning, we were woken up by our friend from last night who was kicking around outside the car, hoping to get more business out of us. After scratching around a while, he actually shouted “Hey, Amigo!” which we ignored. It was about 6am, there was no way we were going to entertain him. We stayed in bed a long while, listening to the noise of our friend as he started working on chucking some oysters he’d found, probably with the intention of selling them to us for breakfast.
Dan got up to make breakfast while I stayed in bed blogging, opening the back doors to let the ocean air in. It was still foggy and cold, so I stayed wrapped up in the doona. We ate cereal off the bed and after he made coffee, Dan walked off down the beach with Cleo like I’d done last night. While he was gone, our friend walked behind the back of the van and started talking to me. I knew he was in sale mode so I just said I was sorry repeatedly and he eventually went away after a huge roll of the eyes. He’d obviously invested most of his morning hoping to get more money out of us gringos.
The vendors were just barely setting up as we rolled out of camp, no danger of getting stuck, what a brilliant camp to start the trip.
Ten minutes down the road, we stopped at K38 (highway kilometre marker) to check out the huge statue of Jesus that loomed over the small village (another Moon book suggestion). As soon as we exited off the highway, we hit a couple of potholes and were on the dirt. Mexico really is a mix of everything. From the top of the Jesus hill we could see perfectly groomed infrastructure in the form of the highway, halfway done construction in the streets, beautiful waves, skyscraper apartment buildings on the beach and a giant Jesus statue to top it all off.
On our scramble to the top of the Jesus hill, we stopped to talk to a semi-local. A big black guy, he spoke to us in English and explained that he was having his holiday house inspected by an engineer the next day thanks to a landslide in his backyard. He was from near LA and obviously came down here regularly. We scrambled on up to the top of the hill, knowing we were taking the hard way clambering over rocks and cactus to get to the feet of Jesus. He towered over a small shelter that must have been used for congregations, though I can’t imagine it would happen very often. We took a different way down, walking through the suburban streets with dogs barking aplenty from all directions. There were all different styles of houses, ranging from complete homeless shacks, historic mansions and the most modern duplexes.
Back at the van, we carried on down the hill and crossed the highway to have a quick look at the beach. K38 was supposed to be one of the more popular surf spots in all of northern Baja but the swell was low. We chatted to an American couple who were getting suited up. They were down for the day from San Diego having taken sickies off work.
Back on the highway, we carried on towards Ensenada. The drive was pretty uneventful, but we were never short of things to look at. We stopped at a convenience store to stock up on beer, cigarettes (for Dan) and water. A pack of cigarettes, 12 bottles of beer and a 6L container of water cost us something like 250 Pesos ($12). Before I could get in the car, we were accosted by yet another man wanting to sell us some pickled vegetables. Dan continued to impress me with his Spanish managing to carry most of the conversation in the right language as the man told us about his family and how he had to feed them. We gave him some coins and he went on his way.
Staying on Highway 1, we were taken away from the beach and into the countryside. Before long, we were out of the built-up housing area and into the countryside. It could have been America, or Victoria in Australia for all the wide open fields of grain. The mountains hid the land from the ocean and it was beautiful. After about an hour of that, we were back to the ocean and both hungry, our stomachs finally recovered from yesterday’s huge meal.
My nav was already set to a Moon book suggested taco stand that was the oldest in Ensanada. As soon as we were in the city, we saw way more gringos than we had the whole trip thanks to the cruise terminal right in the city. We drove past all the tourists walking the markets and made our way to the Tacos El Fenix stand. We drove around a few streets to find parking which we eventually found. As Dan locked the car, he was accosted by another Mexican trying to sell stuff but quickly dismissed him.
We walked the block to the taco stand which was very local, just a small shack on the street, no seats or nothing, just grab and go style. Learning from yesterday’s mistakes, we started with one taco each, at 18 Pesos ($1). They put fish in the tortilla and left it to us to take our fill of toppings. They were devine, but I took sauce that was way too spicy. I went back for another round, Dan for two. We were both thinking we’d be having a solid diet of fish tacos this whole trip.
Keen to get out of the city and towards the beach, we drove a few miles out to Laplaya Hermosa. On our way, we saw a bunch of Trophy Trucks, which are Dakar-style off road vehicles, probably here for an endurance event that Dan’s brother had once been involved in. Would have been cool if we could see a bit of it!
The beach was normally a popular spot for tourists and locals to hang out, but it was absolutely deserted, probably thanks to the foul weather and the cool temperature. It also didn’t have a very nice smell and the water looked dirty. We carried on our way, figuring we’d find a better beach spot further down. Dan used his instincts, turning off the highway when he saw a good spot where people were driving right onto the beach. We didn’t wanna risk driving into the soft sand, but we managed to find a spot on some hard stuff nearby a place where a lot of cruise goers were having fun on their hired ATVs.
We parked up and went for a walk along the beach, tested the water for temperature and inspected the collection of Tiki huts that lined the beach. I’m sure people get up early on a nice Saturday to nab these huts for the day. We couldn’t find a better parking spot so settled on the one we already had and went back for an afternoon siesta. The weather was really putting a downer on my mood, dampening my enthusiasm to explore much. I settled myself in bed and on Dan’s suggestion, rigged my computer up to the clothesline I’d installed yesterday. It balanced the laptop perfectly above my head. It was time for F1. Dan watched qualifying with me and the first few laps of the race before going into nap mode. I only lasted a few more laps before I did the same.
Despite the noise of ATVs and cars driving past, we both slept solidly for at least an hour, waking up around 5pm and ready to head off. The next thing south on the peninsula was La Bufadora, a blowhole that is the second largest in the world. We expected proper tourism as we drove the forty minutes towards it. Without Google maps, we’d have been working hard to navigate thanks to the significant lack of signs posted anywhere along the roads. On the way, we saw yet another trophy truck so I got to Googling to see what we were missing. Turns out the Baja 500 enduro was on this very weekend, starting tomorrow. Wicked! I looked up the 500 mile circuit and found that we could probably find ourselves a spot to watch on race day (Saturday). Exciting timing.
When we neared La Bufadora, we could feel the tourism, thanks to a huge parking lot and men with vests directing people. It was 6pm, so the crowds had long since dispersed and good on Dan, when a man tried to wave us in to a parking spot, he just pointed that he wanted to go forward and so did. The long market street was empty, with only a few vendors still around packing up shop since all the cruise goers had departed back to their boat. We found a free parking spot right by the rocks behind some abandoned (or just closed for the night, it was hard to tell) buildings. Free parking! We walked down the market street, Cleo happily in tow since we’d figured out a way to lock the car without getting locked out. I was happy we’d avoided what must have been absolute market carnage as we walked towards the blowhole, instead enjoying a peaceful stroll. At the end of the markets, there was a bit of infrastructure to view the blowhole next to another abandoned building that was probably once a visitor’s centre.
There was a French couple just leaving the viewpoint, but other than that, we had the place to ourselves. I asked if they’d seen the blowhole do its thing and they said yes, but it was very quiet today. Oh well, we didn’t think so, it was brilliant! It sprayed water up into the air a few times every minute, much to our enjoyment. The water was perfectly clear and a bright aqua when it was stirred up by the rocks. Definitely a cool feature of the Baja, I could just imagine the hundreds of cruisers that would pass through here every day as their excursion off the boat, which they probably paid scores of money for.
Back to the car, we were pretty satisfied with the spot as a camp and so we stayed. Dan had cereal for dinner while I heated up some leftovers that were well past needing eating. Again, we had the whole place to ourselves, with a slightly decreased chance of getting caught by the tide thanks to being up on the cliffs. We love Mexico. No need for a freecampsites.net site in this country, you can just camp everywhere! As we lay in bed, we could see the lights from the houses across the water. There seemed to be half as many lights as there were houses.