On the Baja Once Again

We left El Centro, CA ten-ish,  after a brief stop at an ATM and the local Starbucks. Driving west on Interstate 8 was unimpressive, although it brought back memories and a chuckle of Linda driving the ill-fated VW bus from San Diego to Pheonix with virtually no brakes. 

About 1/2 way to Tecate we turned off on old highway 94. A much more interesting road through the Campo Indian Reservation.  A great twisty road though pleasant country side. I surmised that the Campo tribe must have been good negotiators. They seem have held onto the best land in the area. As opposed to ending up with the parts the white men didn't want... just an unscientific observation of other reserves we have traveled through.  Enough of my opinion.. getting back to the trip...  

From a point coming down the hill toward Tecate, while you could still see over the fence, Tecate looked like any other sprawling Mexican city. We couldn't see any smoke or hear any gunfire. From the time we crossed the Canada/US border until I chatted with a fellow in the hotel parking last night, everyone told us not to go to into Mexico. This includes the border guard at Roosville. She ranted about dangers, then pulled us over for a closer vehicle check.

So far in Mexico everything has been quite the opposite. At the border we drove right though the "Nothing to Declare" lane and stopped at the Migración  office lot to fill out a tourist card. We had hoped to stop at the Aduana to get a vehicle permit  but this service has been discontinued at the Tecate crossing. Hopefully we can that straightened out in La Paz because they won't let us on the ferry to Topo without one. We change some US dollars to  Pesos at a small booth on the corner, one block straight down from the border crossing. It gave us fair rate of exchange. Everyone at the border was friendly and helpful.

Approaching the Tecate Border Crossing

The street straight from the border crossing. Turn left at the church to go to Ensenada.

The road (Hwy 3) from Tecate to Ensenada is currently under construction from just outside Tecate for about 30K. It is slow going but passable. Once we were past the detours the road was good and got progressively better as we approached Ensenada. Hwy 3 intersects the autopista from Tijuana a few miles north of Ensenada. From this point the traffic was quite a bit heavier.

The detour around construction on hwy 3 was a little rough at times.

But the road improved.

Zoom in on this photo to see typical passing. There is a red car approaching the white car passing on a double yellow line. It doesn't look too bad but there is another car ahead of the dark car. The white car is passing 2 cars.  He made it. I was slowing down waiting for the fireworks... we are just wimpy passer, I think.

We had found an interesting looking hotel on line prior to arriving in Ensenada but once we located it we decided that it was not what we were looking for... too fancy and too isolated. We ended up down town at Hotel Villa Fontana de Ensenada. It is in the hotel district. There are many nice hotels on this street. All reasonably priced at this time of year.  We walked around for a while and ate at a sidewalk restaurant near the hotel.

Turning into the Villa Fontana courtyard.

BTW... my apologies  for the quality of the photos These were all taken from a helmet cam mounted behind the windshield of the bike using a wireless shutter release.

Heading down the coast toward El Rosario tomorrow...