Ensenada

We left Tijuana the next day and drove south, settling at Ensenada for the night. Motel America, a typical, old American styled motel offers rooms for only thirty dollars one block from the tourist strip of Ensenada. After depositing Kat on the bed, cranking the fan in the non air conditioned rooms, I went to el supermercado to buy some supplies for dinner. After cooking and dolling out the pasta I realised that eating the Caesar salad earlier in the day probably wasn't the best idea as I rushed for the motel toilet. The next twenty four hours consisted of me lying in bed clutching my twisting intestines then moving to the toilet every so often when I got bored of that. Woo Hoo. I love Mexico.

I awoke feverish the next morning and was still regularly running for the bathroom. I managed only to go for a short walk in the afternoon. There I visited the pharmacy who gave me some medicine. By the next morning Montezuma's revenge had stopped but my guts still felt like a knife was occasionally being twisted in them. We saw a little more of Ensenada, and got our tourist Cards from the department of immigration. We were supposed to get them at the US/Mexican border but crossing it was so easy we were in downtown Tijuana before we even saw where to stop to get them.


The tourist district of Ensenada has more pharmacies per block than it knows what to do with. Yes, the hawkers are again outside the pharmacies trying to lure you in. The number of pharmacies equals bars and taco stands, and that's saying something. And the one drug they all advertise more than any other is Viagra. They actually have Viagra Man, who promotes the drug.



We checked out of Hotel America the next day and attempted to drive south. But I had somehow managed to lock the car keys in the boot, after I had unlocked the car doors. Fuck. There is no way to open the boot from the inside and there is no access portal from the back seat. Fuck. Think, think. I left Kat in the car and walked to a Taxi rank and found a driver who could habla ingleis. He drove me to a locksmith and explained my predicament. I caught a lift back to the hotel with the Locksmith. He took one look at the car and said one word, "difficult". The only way he could get in was to tear out the back seat, undo some bolts, knock out some carpeting then start blindly reaching around with his arm. Slowly our boot was being emptied from the dog-door sized hole he had created. Kat asked if she could have a look and the little champion found the keys in about thirty seconds. Tops. Good ending I reckon.

Somewhere down Mex 1 highway we saw some signs saying '(something we cant read) stop in 1500 meters'. Then came these painted wooden cutouts on the side of the road of military men with guns a blazing. Next was the sign in English reading "this is a routine military checkpoint". From where I'm from a routine military checkpoint doesn't include a bunch of eighteen year old guys holding assault rifles in full combat gear watching you while another dude rummages through your car, but this is Mexico. I wish I had some pictures but a voice in the back of my mind went something like this, "camera's make people nervous, pointing an SLR at a man with a gun and authority to use it like I'm some sort of journo might make him nervous. Do I want to make the military nervous? No". So we stepped out of the vehicle like we were told and tried to answer the questions in Spanish and English. After they had poked around they simply let us go on our way.



El Rosario is A tiny village nestled in a bend on the Mex 1 highway. We took a room at the Baja Cactus for thirty five dollars. It was luxurious. This kind of room would cost hundreds in the US or Australia. In the car-park I met a man, Tim, who lives in Los Cabos, on the southern tip of Baja California. He has driven across the peninsula fifty four times. Talking to him I discovered that his father was a famous builder in Santa Barbara. His fathers house was somewhat of a magnet for celebrities at the time and Tim was friends with David Cosby. He once had a conversation with Neil Young. For those of you unfamiliar with Neil 'Shakey' Young's character I'll try to explain why this is a big deal. David Cosby himself came up to Tim later that night after the conversation and said, "That's weird, you were talking with Neil, Neil never talks to anybody". It's coincidental because that day I got an email from The Captain saying he had secured Kat and I Neil Young tickets for when he tours Sydney (thanks fella).

We ate at the only, yet supposedly famous (Steve McQueen used to eat there), restaurant in town, Mama Espinoasa's. The food was crap. The only thing Kat could eat was a Vegetable soup (watery cabbage and carrot dishwater). We went to pay the bill and discovered we didn't have enough pesos. And there wasn't an ATM in town. The closest was in San Quintin about an hour away back the way we had come. Great. I managed to scrape just enough together from the change in my car and an American dollar bill to pay for dinner. Completely cashless we decided to start heading north in the morning.