#9: Baja California - Mexico - A Year and a Day

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v> 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.

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