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Baja California
Wednesday, 10th September 2003
I have been coming out of a pretty low couple of days (detailed
below). The adjustment to travelling in Mexico has been kind of
hard, but feel like I am adapting. Slowly. Not sure where in
Mexico to go next (take a detour north to see the Copper Canyon or
go straight towards the exciting sounding central Mexican cities).
Right now, resting and recouperating in the small southern Mexican
town called Mulege. Very hot and very slow.
You should be able to see where I am at on this map.
Crossing the border into Tijuana
Tijuana
I’d heard so much about Tijuana (all very negative) that it was hard
to actually “see” the place once I arrived. I was genuinely scared
of walking around the city. I had been primed to expect instantenous
pick pocketing, deception and stomach upsets, and I didn’t spend a
lot of time there. I was envious and a bit angry at the well dressed
American tourists blithely shopping – how was it that I was
desperately cautious yet they were having a great time? A little
knowledge can be a dangerous thing I guess – I knew enough to be
scared but not enough that I knew how to deal with anything. Aside
from the urban myths (I’ve since heard stories of mass graves,
human/donkey sex shows, onstage child sacrifice), TJ does give off
the air that something nasty is going on beneath the surface (the
human/drug trafficking, at the very least, are real). I thought
about staying a few days and exploring, but caution got the better
of me and I got a bus south soon after I arrived.
The chewing gum debacle
What follows is embarrassing. I quickly caught a bus heading south
out of TJ, somewhat relieved to be alive and still with all my
possessions. I got talking to a 20-something Mexican student, and
after a while, he offered me a stick of chewing gum. I accepted,
then, with the stick in my hand, remembered the guide book advice
that many con artists befriended backpackers on buses and then
offered them drugged food/drink. I looked down at the chewing gum.
Did I really think he had prepared drugged gum? My intuition was
unusually indecisive. But once the idea had sprouted in my mind, I
couldn’t happily chew away, and gave it back to him. He asked me
why – I then didn’t have the courage to explain, and gave an awful
fudged answer, but I’m pretty sure he guessed. We continued to talk,
and eventually the awkwardness went away, kind of. I feel like a
real idiot over this.
Hotel Sauzal and Coyote Cal’s
I stayed in a hostel outside of the town of Ensenada, two hours bus
journey from the border. Hostel Sauzal was run by the wonderful
Maria, who gave the place an extremely peaceful air. It was a small,
friendliness inducing place, and I met some great people there –
both other travellers and some of Maria’s neighbours. I spent a lot
of time resting in the hostel rather than out in Ensenada, as the
feeling of culture shock tends to make me sleepy all the time (I
found my lack of Spanish and lack of awareness about anything
Mexican very stressful).
I travelled on to an American owned hostel Coyote Cal’s, a hour
further south, because it was supposed to be good for surfing and
parties. I was dropped off by the bus and stood at the turn off in
the midday heat, trying to hitch a lift for the 12kms to the hostel.
I became quite nervous, especially after I gave half my remaining
water to a bedraggled somebody who was walking along the highway.
However, soon after the water incident, a Land Rover filled with
Mexican school girls and their teacher pulled up and drove me to the
beach. Coyote Cal’s was something of an odd place, and got a lot
more tense and odd once the owner arrived, but I met some very cool
people there and so stayed for a few days. The owner seemed to
basically dislike travellers (male ones at least), and repeatedly
chided us about tiny infringements of his house rules. The surfing
was great fun, although I have an awful lot to learn. The wildlife
there and in the rest of Baja is amazing: seals sunned themselves on
a rock by the hostel and dolphins leapt in the bays where we were
surfing. Seeing dolphins was for me one of the main reasons for
coming to Baja, so I was very happy.
I was given a lift to a local bus station by two very nice
Californians who had also been staying at the hostel, and then took
buses to Guerro Negro. Here things started to go wrong. The bus was
more costly than had I expected, the Guerro Negro hotel was then
twice as expensive as the guide book promised; I then missed the bus
southwards the next morning due to messing up the hour time
difference between North and South Baja. I tried hitching, no luck.
The heat and humidity were intense – fish could probably breathe in
the air around me.
I got the evening bus, aiming to get to the Eco Mundo beach hostel, but the driver dropped me off at a beach 10kms
away from where I was supposed to be. It was 11pm and deep night.
(Mum, you may want to skip the next few lines.) I had no way of
getting back, and suspected in the dark I wouldn’t even see the sign
for Eco Mundo if I did. The beach resort was too expensive for me to
stay in, but the night watchman suggested I could camp on the beach.
I made myself a peanut butter sandwich by the light of my Maglite
torch and watched shooting stars all night. But buzzing insects
prevented me from sleeping more than an hour or so. At day break I
walked to the road to wait for a bus or a car willing to give me a
lift. Fleets of mosquitos bombarded me continuously, despite 50% DEET
repellent. Then three dogs from the hotel approached me and started
barking, one walking right up and eyeballing me for a while. Then
the owner came out and said there were no buses until the afternoon.
I’m a big believer in the whole self help literature idea that “You
choose your own mood”. But in the hot sun, sweating like crazy,
exhausted, thirsty, hungry, being bitten by mosquitos whom I was
losing the strength to fend off and being barked at by dogs, I felt
pretty low.
View from EcoMundo
Finally, a flat backed van stopped, and the Mexicans
gestured for me to jump in the back (it seems always to be full cars
that pick up hitchhikers). The van raced off, the wind tearing past
me and I hung on for dear life. They dropped me off at EcoMundo, and
once I was able to look in a mirror I saw that I was covered in
bites. Big red swollen bites, on my arms, knees, forehead and lips.
The next night, sleeping in a hammocked palm hut on Conception Bay,
mosquitos continued their feast and I had even more bites when I
woke up. Eco Mundo was beautiful and very cheap for what it offered,
but I had to get out. A German girl with a van gave me a lift back
to the town of Mulege, and I’ve been resting there since.
Mulege is a nice small town, hot and very slow. I haven’t done much,
just taking pills to calm all my bites down and relaxing. Feeling
better today, finished the very good novel Turn of the Century, and
also read a funny Western that was in the hotel library.
A bit confused about where to go next in Mexico. I feel like my
original purposes and plans for travelling are becoming less
convincing in the light of the reality of travelling, and I need to
come up with new ones sooner or later. The difficulties I’m having
adapting to the relatively wealthy Mexico make me wonder whether I
can “have fun” in places like Honduras. Again realising how little I
understood about this Round the World thing when I was deciding to
do it. Will write more on this topic later. Want to take classes in
Spanish soon, settle somewhere for a few weeks and live with a local
family (that feels like the “right” path to be taking). Right now
my Spanish communication ability is about the level of a well
trained dog. I can sort of make myself understood on simple things,
and eventually figure out what people are trying to tell me, but
it’s very, very basic Spanish. Going to head south again soon
towards La Paz, and will spend a few days there trying to decide
what route to take through Mexico.
Questions?
If you want more information about this area you can email the author or check out our North America Insiders page.
