🇲🇽 Valle de Guadalupe - 07.02.24

I drove my Colorado car, with New Mexico license plates, that now lives in California, across the Mexican border into Tijuana. Exploring Baja by car has been on my list but this adventure is all about timing.

Since I’m home basing in SoCal, near the ocean… going into Baja this time of year seems pointless… but… I am switching apartments in Los Angeles and have some open days. I have been wanting to figure out the dynamics of driving across the border in my own car and the possibilities of flying out of Tijuana International for cheap airfare.

Also, I send out an open invitation to anyone that wants to meet me on an adventure… and then later complain no one shows up. And that’s not exactly true… on occasion… I find an adventurous soul… that is willing to brave my company. And it all starts with “pick me up at the airport at…o’clock!”

ChilangaSil flew out from CDMX to TJ International to join me in the Baja for ten days. We did a few adventures in Mexico City so she knows what she’s in for. Which means… we have a snack bag… and that bag is the priority… it will remain close and accounted for at all times.

Anywho… I drove down the 5 from Los Angeles on a Friday afternoon which wasn’t the ideal time. Construction and accidents and a 2-1/2 trip took 5 hours. Interstate 5 literally goes to the Mexican border.

I finally made it to the entry point and slowly moved ahead. There’s no imagration check… you just drive right into Mexico. No papers. No I.D. check… nada. Bring whatever you want. Bring whoever you want. The moment I passed the official checkpoint it was like a motocross race gate had dropped. Trucks and cars and motorcycles and more trucks hit the gas, revving engines, recklessly swapping lanes, honks and screams… what and thee fk!

Everyone on the California side; nice, polite, following the rules. Tijuana side; Mad Max Fury Road, no rules, every man for himself… I don’t know how I made it past without a side swipe on the adventure pod. Seriously, driving into Tijuana from the PG-13, well groomed and polite San Diego is like entering into a post-apocalyptic George Miller (MadMax movies) scene. It’s what San Diego will look like in the future as a result of our shitty American politics.

TJ has it’s reputation and visiting as a Yankee pig-dog has its warnings of danger. I did stay near downtown to get a feel of what the joint is about. It’s Mexico… with its smells, trash, rubble, grit and edge… which I have a particular… let’s say, anthropological interest and fondness for. It plays notes of the authentic human condition… not that I like the trash and the smells… but it’s does spell ‘life’ however you want to arrange the letters.

I was parked in the Cacho barrio that is full of cool restaurants, had some bohemian energy… and it’s city… city vibrations. I know it, I’ve walked it… it’s intrinsic environment for me.

I picked up ChilangaSil at the airport at 1am. It’s a busy place at that time and don’t understand why other than that’s when the cheap flights come in and out. It’s a nice, modern airport… and you can actually walk over from the U.S. side directly into the the airport using the CBX tunnel for $16US. It’s pretty slick.

Overall I felt safe in TJ. People doing their thing. There’s no machine-gun wielding drug cartels patrolling the city. I’m sure there’s plenty of unsavory things and people… like all cities. It is the Mexican frontier and border towns have the potential for danger… but there is plenty of money coming in from the California side and it appears to be a very functioning place live.

We hit Ensenada which is a port town and hosting cruise ships and cruise ship people. It’s dusty and touristy and the weather is mild like most of the Pacific Coast.

A quick tour of Valle de Guadalupe that is packed with vineyards. My drinking days are over so I’m there to enjoy the aesthetic and olive oil. It’s super dry and this the dry season. So… where the rivers show up on map; there is no water. The climate is still temperate… even for being June in the desert so it’s tolerable. I wanted to hike… but accessing available lands and trails were blocked off by private property. We ended up just driving around everywhere because you needed to call property owners for a tour of the land and no one was home… and that’s not what I call hiking.

The Valley was a cool experience but I will likely never return. On the way back to Tijuana I ran over a nail and punctured a tire. I just bought a tire plug repair kit and a portable compressor. I don’t want to be in the sticks, in a foreign country, or my country… stranded.

The puncture just happened to be in a place I could easily find, and maneuver my tire in a location that I could fix it. Muscle in a plug, fill up the tire… on the road again. Again… pretty slick.

I am working on a book… more like a pamphlet (to fund my other book) that is a collection of adventure tips and tricks and gear… something’s I’ve learned along the way. Like… having a puncture repair kit and compresor with you when you drive to Mexico.

I had the tire properly patched in Tijuana. It was 60 pesos ($3US). It took less than 10 minutes and the bloke was nice and honest and I’m now a fan of Tijuana tire repair.

There’s ten tons more to this story… but part of this trip was to explore border town living. And at the moment… prolly not. I’d be crossing the border perpetually to get in my nature things… and I need those.

I have a global entry card with the vehicle Sentri. There’s dedicated lanes for that while crossing into the U.S. It took about 10-15 minutes. They did search my coolers and found my stash of ginger. The border guy called it in to the supervisor… and cool. And that goes in the adventure tip pamphlet… you can smuggle as much ginger from Mexico to the United States as you like. Boop.

The odd thing about that… the ginger… I had bought it at the Whole Foods in Santa Monica and smuggled it into Mexico… and then back to the U.S. Yep… total Indiana Jones like…

I’m in San Diego today… in the North Park neighborhood I love… if you want to join me just say, “pick me up at the airport at _:_…” and I’ll come running fast.

#iwannagototijuana

#andeatbbqiguana

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