San Quintín

The sun woke us early, so we had dressed, eaten breakfast, and taken a long walk on the beach before 9 am. Back in Chula Vista, workers for an orphanage in San Quintîn had brought suitcases filled with used clothing for the group to bring south. Among us we had 70 suitcases of clothes, so this morning folks from the orphanage brought a truck to collect the clothes and several vans to take those who are interested in visiting. It is called Christo po el Mundo (Christ for the World) and is much more than an orphanage. There is a school, a clinic complete with surgery, an extensive outreach program. They even operate a volunteer fire department and an ambulance service that is the only free ambulance for that part of Baja California. They also have an agricultural program, including growing macadamia nuts and producing macadamia nut products for sale.
After lunch in San Quintîn, we got back to our camp in time for the 5 pm drivers meeting and a pot-luck dinner and campfire afterwards.

Fish Tacos and Wineries in Ensenada

Early morning walk on the beach, then to the small Museum here on the grounds where don Bejamin, the proprietor, has promised a tour. By 9:45 we’ve learned that he had to go to San Diego, but maybe someone can unlock the museum for us. But there is no one available – they’ll try to open it for us at the end of the day. So several of us drive into Ensenada town for shopping, sightseeing along the Málecon and the fish market, followed by a lunch of fish and shrimp tacos at one of the many stands nearby. We then drove into the Guadalupe valley and tasted some decent Merlot, and some very sweet fruity Chardonnay, at the Viña de Liceaga in San Antonio de las Minas. When we returned to the resort, the museum was indeed open and we saw an impressive collection of pre-columbian (mostly Mayan and Olmec) sculpture along with some artifacts from the Colonial period and an extensive collection of photos of early Ensenada. Had a simple dinner in the rig and then went to the driver’s meeting for Wednesday’s trip to San Quintín. We have no TV reception, so we’ll have to wait to hear any results of the primaries in Texas and Ohio.

Chula Vista to Ensenada

Our travel group is “D”, which meant we left Chula Vista at 9:30 am. We are the last rig – the tail-gunners. That means we alert the group if big trucks or buses are about to overtake us, and we let the leaders know when one or more of us gets caught by a stop light. This keeps Jackie busy on the CB radio when Noel is driving. It was an easy fifteen minutes or so to the Mexican border; a bit of traffic on Tijuana’s ring road, then a beautiful drive on the coastal toll road to Ensenada. We had some spectacular views of the Pacific, such as this one of the Punta San Miquel. We arrived at the Estero Beach Resort on the south side of Ensenada just about noon. Spent the afternoon beach-walking, relaxing, and doing a few maintenance chores. At 6 pm, we all walked over to the restaurant for a Mexican Fiesta dinner with live mariachi music. This is about as fancy as it will get in Baja, the other camp spots will be more primitive – less in the way of trees and grass, but more natural beauty. We’re excited to finally be in México.

To Tijuana and Back

We were up early this morning, for 7:30 car pools to the nearby trolly station (see photo), so we could ride the San Diego Trolley to the border station at San Ysidro. There we walked across the border to the Migración office on the Mexican side to obtain our Tourist Cards. Then back to the U.S. side and through U.S. immigration and back to San Diego. This way we can drive straight through on Monday morning. On the way back, we stopped at the Chula Vista Costco, which has a Casa de Cambio with a good exchange rate, where we bought some Mexican pesos. Back at the campground, it was soon time for a series of meetings included a one-hour basic Spanish lesson, a procedural meeting for the drivers in our five-RV travel group, another meeting to review the road log for Monday, a big hamburger BBQ, a presentation from the Charity Committee, and finally a slide show of the sights we’ll see on our travels through Baja California.
During dinner, we had a special presentation from Mike and Terry Church, authors of several Rving books, including one on the Baja. They have just returned from two months in Baja to update their book, and enticed us with highlights of their trip – especially once-in-a-lifetime profusions of wildflowers because of the recent rains. Can’t wait to get started!

Prep Day in Chula Vista

A cool day in San Diego; the sun never really burned through the marine layer. No matter: we ran errands, worked on the blog, and met our fellow Baja travelers. We got registered; found out which travel groups we’re in – we travel in groups of five RVs; and learned the details of heading into Tijuana Sunday morning to get out tourist visas. Here’s a photo of Maryke and Lin Hines, the volunteer wagon-masters for this rally. "Happy Hour" was spent socializing in the picnic area outside the wagon-masters’ RV. Then six of us went to Anthony’s Fish Grotto in San Diego for a seafood dinner.

On to San Diego

After a relaxed morning, we got the three rigs lined up and headed out for San Diego. The group we’ll be travelling with is the “Mexican Connection” (Chapter 8 of the national Escapees RV Club). These are Rvers, some full-time some not, who enjoy travelling the Mexico and who organize a rally each year to a different Mexican destination. This is an all-volunteer effort – the volunteer leaders for this year’s rally started planning over a year ago. We are all meeting at the KOA in Chula Vista (near San Diego), starting mid-day Saturday March 1. The San Diego KOA is nice, more spacious and with more trees than most KOA's. We’ll have a couple of days of orientation and getting acquainted here, then on to Ensenada March 3.

Jojoba Hills

This is supposed to be a “rest day” at Jojoba Hills but Noel spent most of the day washing and polishing the exterior of the RV, while Jackie did interior cleaning and organizing. We also went into Temecula for some shopping, and then had a pot-luck dinner in the big fifth-wheel RV that Sarah and Pete have bought to serve as a home base when they’re not travelling in their Lazy Daze. The photos show our campsite and a volunteer-built garden.