Ensanada, Mexico
February 15, 2003
Took the weekend off and went along the Mexican coast about 100 miles southward. If you are going to go, you need to get Mexican Insurance for the car. It cost me approximately $14 + approximately $2.50 per day afterwards. I heard that its possible to buy one year of Mexican insurance for $150 if someone was intending to do this type of thing often. So anyhow, I got my insurance and took a drive south.
From the highway, you can immediately see some pretty cool stuff, like a soccer stadium easily completely visible from the highway. A bright green field and such. Enterance into Mexico is extremely easy and simple. They did check my car briefly for guns I guess. Guns are illegal in Mexico. The first thing I definetely noticed was people dart across major highways to cross them. Actually thats quite common throughout Latin America, as I remember seeing that countless times when I lived and traveled South America (that was nearly 5 years ago already).
Anyhow, I basically bypassed Tijuana, the city, entirely this time. If you go directly west upon entering Mexico, you will arrive at Playa de Tijuana (Tijuana Beach). This isn't too bad. I saw some California license plates cars around here, as well as parked in front of some of the houses. Its kind of an average neigherhood, nothing too special.. I didn't actually walk on the beach, but I did get near it. Its approximately 10-15 miles west of Tijuana and extremely easy to get to. At one point, I was trying to get back on the highway to go southward to Rosarito and Ensanada, and this turned out to be a challenge. For one, if you aren't on a main road, some of the residential street roads are incredibly bumpy! You can't go over 10 miles per hour without seriously feeling it. However throughout my weekend excursion, this was the only bad streets I experienced with my car. The other thing I noticed everywhere in Mexico, was speed bumps!! Especially near the Playa de Tijuana, I must have had to slow down for well over 20 speed bumps while just checking out the area.
After Playa de Tijuana, I went southward to the beach community of Rosarita. Immediately you can feel that Rosarita is getting overwhelmed with tourism. I saw ALOT of cars with California plates on them. Its a fairly small town, but I've heard its a very fast-growing community. Apparently even 10 years ago, it was just a fishing village, but now its a major tourist destination. When I was there I read in one of the papers that the major was currently in Mexico City promoting his town for touristic purposes. It is a nice town, although in my opinion, (as I kind of like big cities), I found it too small for my taste. One of the most overwheling things you'll see in Rosarita is an abundance of horses. One of the most touristic things to do here is ride horses on the beach. I also read in the same local newspaper that this was beginning to be a major problem as the streets and beaches was lined with horse dung. Also, in the paper, i read a proposal to have the horses wear diapers in an effort to curb this problem. A very interesting solution. So if you come to Rosarita, I'd definetely either riding the horses to avoid the horse dung, or a thick pair of boots! The city itself was typicaly touristic, but not bad. I saw alot of bars and tourist shops and tourists everywhere. The beach was nice, and the horses were plentiful. A nice place overall.
Next on my stop was Ensanada, about 75 miles south of Tijuana. This town has around 380,000 population, and was quite clean and nice. The highway all along from Playa de Tijuana to Ensanda is amazing!! The beauty reminds me of the best Pacific coast highways I've ever seen, very similar to the Oregon coast or the northern California coast. Complete with cliffs and everything else you can imagine. The first 30 miles south from the border was mostly filled with major highways signs in English promoting hotels and other tourist type things. Many of the houses were quite stunning and visually perfect. They were set along mountainsides, all of which seemed to have amazing views of the Pacific Ocean. It seemed alot of being in Southern California, particularly the towns that run between Los Angeles and San Diego, as many of those communities are postcard perfect. I didn't expect Baja California Mexico to be so similar looking to California. Actually, to be honest, it was a little disappointing, because it was too beautiful. In some ways, I might as well have been in California USA. But looking at the beauty it made me keep forgetting that this was Mexico and I didn't want it to look like California. The other thing about this major highway, is that it was a toll road. I can't remember now, but it was either 2-3 times that I had to pay a $2 toll to be on this road each direction, north and south. After I'd taken this trip, I learned there is another road which locals and those 'in-the-know' take which is free. Well, now I'm in the know, so if I do this again, I'll take the free road. Apparently its just as well maintained as this one was.
Upon arrival in Ensanada, I was equally amazed again. Another really nice town!! The downtown section was incredibly safe and very busy. Ensanada is a coastal town with a small inlet bay as well. Apparently, they are one of the top cities in Mexico taking in cruiseships continuously. In fact, on my visit, a cruiseship was docked in the harbor. Next to the harbor there was a small fish market and a few local-style restaurants. Next to them was alot of nightclubs and bars, and once again tons of tourist shops. I read in the local paper here that a 7-day Carnival celebration would be taking place here. The picture on the front page had 4-5 scantily clad young girls dressed in costume, almost Rio-style. I was pretty shocked. Apparently it attracts people from all over Mexico. There are apparently four large carnivals in Mexico. The largest and most famous is in Veracruz (which incidently has an african-mexican population - not huge, but one in existance there). The other 3 large Mexican Carnivals take place in Mazatlan, La Paz, and Ensanada. Hmm.. nice! So close to the USA border as well!! I am thinking of going to that, except I'm sure lodging will be extremely expensive at that time.
The town itself was also filled with lots of California residents. Even the Mexicans seemed to actually be Mexican-American. Of course, the shops and such were owned by Mexicans, but for the most part, I saw my fellow Americans enjoying all of the bars, nightclubs, tourist stores, and strolling around. It did have a lively feel to it though.
I went into one Mexican bar called "Hussongs" which is supposedly legendary as one of the first bars that the whole town was built around. For the authentic feeling, they had maraichia music and sawdust sprinkled on the floor. Many of my fellow Americans were drinking it up and having a great time in here. Coronas all around the house. I don't know if it was good or bad, but after drinking a beer or two and seeing the American sports on TV, I went looking for something else. But, actually I never found it, everywhere there were Americans and English spoken, all of which enjoying that Mexican ambiance. One of the most interesting parts of the evening was when a stream of semi-truck cabs (without their cargo), came into town honking their horns and rocking up the downtown. There was almost a parade-like procession of over 50 semi-truck cabs honking and hollering. One was doing that Mexican-stereotype thing of making the whole vehicle move up and down. Kind of like on American TV when you see a group of Mexicans in a Monte Carlo making it go up and down. Anyhow, one of the semi-trucks was doing that with his cab to the great satisfaction of all of the onlookers, and great satisfaction to himself as well. Actually it brought a pretty big smile to my face as well.
One last observation about Mexico and Mexicans. Alot of the Mexican people had cowboy hats on in Ensanada, and many places I've been to in Mexico. Not tons and tons, but its like Texas or something. Mexicans and Texans seem to share this interest in having that tough cowboy look completin g the look with a big cowboy hat. Now I didn't see this on everyone by any means, but I saw it just enough to make an observation of it, just like you might in Texas. I mean, in Texas not everyone has cowboy hats and that image, but just enough do that it becomes part of your image for that place. The other Mexican image is that of the Indian-looking men and women. I think most Mexicans are mestizo (mix of white and indian), but some are more Indian. So its kind of interesting to see this cowboy and indian type thing going on. Just an observation. That being said, there were of course alot of Mexicans without that look as well. In fact, most Mexicans have that hard-working look to them. Kind of rough hands and rough faces.
Anyhow, that was basically my Mexican weekend. Oddly, when I came back to the USA I went to National City (between downtown San Diego and the Mexican border), and this neighborhood is primarly Filipino. Hmm.. another interesting experience. I found a disco here, and everywhere you looked you saw Filipino women. It was an interesting contrast to come back from Mexico and end up in the Philippines. After my weekend being like this, I was thinking how interesting it would be to live in National City (in a very Filipino-community) and spend my spare time in Mexico. Could be interesting.
Incidently, my neigherbood where I'm living for the next 6 weeks, is predominately caucasian. Mostly white college students and surfers and kind of beach bums. Definetely a party community in my neighborhood of Mission Beach and Pacific Beach. All of these contrasts are kind of interesting though. I think in six weeks, I'm going to move more southward closer to the Mexican border though.
Also, when I was in the Filipino disco, I was talking to an African-American guy who use to be in the USA military, and was also a military brat growing up in Japan, Turkey, Germany, and such places. He told me that after a failed marriage, he went down to live in Tijuana for six months, and he was telling me nice it was! Apparently, they have world class infrasturcture and everything else. He also said his living expenses were only a fraction of the cost as they were in San Diego. Anyhow, it made me more curious to explore Tijuana more. Maybe next time I go down, which will probably be later this week.
San Diego & Tijuana:
February 25, 2003
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