So I am leaving the country for a nice little Christmas break. Where could I be going?
Maui?
No.
Some other tropical island in the middle of the Pacific?
No.
Here a hint. It’s called BC.
Yikes! That annoying, cold, wet, sparsely populated Canadian province with no good restaurants and no good radio stations? No, of course not.
OK, it’s the other BC, the one at the other end of I-5....Baja California.
I have not been to Mexico before. I was in San Diego about thirteen years ago, but that’s about as relevant as drinking coffee at Tim Horton’s in Bellingham.
Soon I will be in first class (of course) flying south on Alaska Airlines, getting Hawaiian Miles (of course), and reading my new shiny sexy Wallpaper Magazine (of course).
Oh, since I don’t get to travel for work anymore I decided I had to subscribe to shiny, sexy Wallpaper Magazine. I just got my first one this week. I have not opened it yet, waiting for the huge comfortable seat with lumbar support and a small glass of champagne.
OK, more later.
-----------------------------------------------------
As I type this I am in the most beautiful house I have ever set foot in. It’s 7:30 in the morning. I am sitting near the fireplace, drinking coffee and listening to very moody French classical music. The sun has just come up over the hills as the waves are crashing on the clifs below.
A rainstorm is now coming in off the ocean. It’s pounding against the windows right now and contorting the face of the infinity pool. Somehow pounding rain shaking the window is much more romantic when it’s 40 degrees warmer than Seattle and in a foreign county.
I am feeling very happy not to be in jail right now. Yes, there was drama.
The trip started off normally enough though. Our flight down is uneventful and short. Flying over the area before we land I see the standard suburban cul-de-sacs that make up San Diego: downtown, Coronado, and then what appears to be a much larger city covered in smog. Tijuana. Strangely the smog seems to stop right at the border.
The San Diego airport is tiny and stupid. The runway is right downtown and very short so they have to slam on the brakes as soon as you land. There are only 3 luggage carousels and they don’t tell you which one to go to so everyone just mills about complaining. There were two flights from Canada that landed just before us so all these sneaky Canadians were standing in the way being very frustrated. I hate it when you can’t tell one of them is standing right next to you until they speak. “I’m sorey, but shouldn’t it be aboot time for our bags to come up, eh?” So annoying.
We take the shuttle bus over to Hertz to get the car. My name is on the Hertz #1 Club reader board, meaning I can just go get my car without talking to anyone, but we have to get Mexican auto insurance, so I have to go to the counter. Since I have the gold card I get to go to the front of the line, cutting in front of all the poor people. The boy at the counter is very helpful with questions about Mexico.
As we get in the car I turn on the radio looking for the local NPR station, KPBS, but guess what? I get KCRW loud and clear. This is going to be a good trip.
We want to buy groceries before we get to Mexico. All we can find is this crappy old Albertson’s store. I’m like, oh great, all our food will smell like stinky white cake made by Mormons. I hate Albertson’s. It’s not my store. Mark and Lynnette get groceries while I go next store to the Rite Aid to buy alcohol. The Rite Aid is also a liquor store. I am fine with that.
While still in San Diego we can see Tijuana in front of us spread out over several hills. It looks very dense, very urban, very unlike sprawly San Diego. Now the drama begins.
We get close to the border. Traffic is narrowed down to a couple lanes. I expect to get stopped at a window and asked questions like when you go into sneaky, annoying Canada, but there is no window, no one to talk to, no place to stop… it looks like we are supposed to kind of drive right through... so we do...we drive right through the international border. Did we do this wrong? Are we illegal aliens? Are we in trouble?
Well, yes, yes we are! 30 seconds into Mexico a cop on a motorcycle turns on his siren and waves us over. I slam on the breaks in the middle of the road stopping traffic. Señor Cop gets off his bike and I roll down the window. He points at the traffic piling up and in broken English asks if we speak Spanish. I say no. He rolls his eyes and says to follow him. I follow for several blocks and then he pulls into a dark alley. There are lots of abandoned cars in various states of dismemberment in the alley. This is officially scary now. Mark and Lynnette get very quiet. Finally Mark screams out, “This is what happened in the movie Traffic. We are going to die here!” I slap him on the forehead and tell him to snap out of it.
Señor Cop walks up to the window again and tries to ask us a number of questions:
Where are you from?
Seattle, Washington, near Canada but we are not annoying like them!
Why are you here?
Vacation…I mean Holiday…wait no that’s British…Vacacioni...oh, is that Italian?
Vacaciones?
Si?
Where do you work?
Well I work at Boeing now you know where they make dos aeros planos but before that I worked very briefly at Amazon.com but I hate that place really awful environment you know there is a reason they don't make a profit and before that I worked a Starbucks Coffee company for over 16 years but don’t even get me started on that.
Señor Cop rolls his eyes again.
Give me your registration and Mexican Auto Insurance forms.
Oui....no...Yes…OK… Si!
Your insurance is filed out perfectly.
….thanks…?
Where are you going?
Rosarito?
Follow me...
We do. For the next 20 miles we follow Señor Cop as he weaves in and out of traffic on Mexico 1 Highway. I can tell Mark and Lynnette think he is taking us out into the country to shoot us, and this has occured to me....but I really do think when we get to Rosarito he will just wave goodbye. As we drive along we see all these weird new housing developments going up. It’s kind of tract housing. Miles of row houses that appear to be made for working class people. Seems kind of eastern-block like. There are also some really nice houses on the hills, and some actual shanty towns where people live in boxes and tin shacks. After a while I decide it’s kind of nice having a police escort as you drive through a country for the first time. Finally we get to Rosarito. Señor Cop stops, we open the window, he waves and says goodbye and good luck my friends en Español. We wave and say thank you….and then we all hyperventilate.
So that was our first 20 minutes in Mexico.
As we drive on it occurs to me that I have never been pulled over by a cop before…for anything. No speeding, no break lights out, no tailgating. The first time I am pulled over by the police it’s for violating an international border. Jesus!
Right when I say Jesus!...there he is...
100 feet high and apparently made of plastic with an airplane warning light on his head. He’s standing on a mountain just south of Rosarito. This is quite odd. Right then the NPR station from Los Angeles is blocked. So is the one from San Diego. Jesus hates NPR! The Republicans were right.
Finally we get to the house. It’s in a gated community between Rosarito and Ensenada. The house is amazing. Stucco, exposed wood beam ceilings, a brick dome over the dining room table, Wolf stove, SubZero fridge. Three huge bedrooms each with its own giant flat screen TV. The bathrooms are all marble, the floors, the walls, the showers. There is a giant jacuzzi bathtub. There is an infinity pool just off the living room, a roof top deck, a fire pit and a gas grill outside. The inside is a combination of Mexican and Balinese art with some modern paintings. This really is the nicest house I have ever set food in. 
After a while we head down the road about a mile to La Fonda. This is kind of a destination restaurant and little hotel around here. We have drinks and the best chips and salsa ever. The chips are really thick and still very warm. The salsa is spicy and chunky.
Lynnette has Coke, which is made here with cane sugar instead of corn syrup so it tastes like it used to in the old days of the US of A. I am unmoved. Coke is the beverage of southern Republicans. No Coke -- Pepsi!
For dinner Mark has Mexican beef steak with some enchiladas. Lynnette has sea bass. I have shrimp stuffed with crab meat then wrapped in bacon and fried. I win.
As we are finishing up dinner I am listening to the guitar player and sipping my margarita. Suddenly my right pinky pulls away from the glass and sticks out, pointing at the guitar player. What is going on? Oh my god, he’s playing Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina on his guitar and my pinky realized it before my brain did. It’s embarrassing when parts of your body decide to out you as a big mo before you want them to.
Before we leave we look out over the beach at the waves crashing below. We see surfers headed out to surf in the sunset. It’s all very cool.
Day one has drawn to a close and we are not in jail! Whoo hoo!
------------------------------------
Today we are going to drive down to the city of Ensenada. This is where the Love Boat goes I think. It’s about 30 miles down the coast. People have always told me that Ensenada should be your first taste of Mexico, not Tijuana, because Tijuana is dirty and scary. They lie, these people.
The way down looks like exactly like Yakima except for the ocean on the right and the occasional palm tree -- all brown and dry with huge high cliffs of basalt. I am absolutely not going to make the comment that the number of Mexican drivers is the same here as in Yakima -- I would never say something like that!
We are on the Mexico 1 toll road, which is a 4 lane divided highway, so the driving is not scary, until we get into the city. We go around this rather large brown rock and then we see cruise ships and a good size city with many houses creeping up the side of high hills. There is a huge Mexican flag right where the cruise ships dock. Traffic here is just absolutely terrifying. This is a city of like 400,000 people and there are apparently two stop lights. Every other intersection is a 4 way stop. But no one stops. Mark has decided he is going do the Gwyneth Paltrow approach to navigating, meaninig he is not going to help, so I am on my own. Eventually we find the La Area Des Los Touristas or whatever is was called. It’s several blocks of restaurants, t-shirt shops, artwork, etc. Yes, another frickin’ vampire town like Lahaina but with insane drivers and old grandmas sitting on the side walk begging for money. So I’ll just fess up right now. I hated this place. Dirty, scary, stressful. I know I am being a white, American, racist, classist, Yankee, Clove Headed pig, but I just want to go to Maui right now and buy some fresh Mahi Mahi at Foodland. I could go on but I think you get the shallowness of me as an international traveler at this point. God only knows how horrible I am going to be about Italy next fall.
So we start walking around and shopping. I buy a mask with a merman sitting on a woman’s face and another mask that is just some kind of pink skinned person with very red lips. Mark buys some Frida Kahlo religious icons and Lynnette buys some small carving of barnyard animals and a large Ugly Betty poncho. She is upset later because she sees the same poncho down the road for half the price she paid.
We stop for lunch to have fish tacos, but then they arrive with lettuce on them! This American Mexican food! Boo! Right after we leave the restaurant we see a street vendor selling real fish tacos with little round tortillas, fish, and avocado. Boo!
We try to find the local fish market but get lost in traffic and get scared. There are giant pot holes in the road, a river running down a main street, and a large area cordoned off with police activity. Little boys wearing black uniforms and carrying machines guns are standing on various street corners. Again, Maui calls to me.
So bailing on the whole idea of getting some fresh local fish for dinner, we decided to try and find a supermarket so we can buy groceries and maybe a cash machine. One of the guide books directs us to Ensenada’s largest mall, La Super Mall De Ensenada. It’s in a neighborhood called Bumfuckadora. We cross town, slowly, given all the 4 ways stops, rushing water in the streets, and boys with machines guns, and finally find this tiny little strip mall with a grocery store, a Photo Hut, a Pizza Hut, and a House of Almonds. No cash machine. The store is bright and clean, but very prepackaged. Its like the exact opposite of a farmer's market. Everything is wrapped in plastic. There is no seafood and only cryo-vaced pigs ears for meat. Even the fruit is in plastic. Yes, I know I am being a racist pig ear again right now.
We buy a bottle of Baja Chardonnay, some potatoes (wrapped in plastic), milk, and dishwasher soap, then we high tail it back to our mansion on the hill. We drink wine and cry.
Since we were unable to buy fish or meat for dinner we will just have to go out to eat again. Tonight we are going out for “lobster” in the nearby fishing town of Puerto Nuevo. These crustaceans live in the water around here. They are not really lobster, more like the langoustine (giant prawn like things) of the Mediterranean. This town is so hilarious. It’s just tiny little collection of lobster restaurants. It reminds me of Deadwood, South Dakota, except on the water on one side and lots and lots of lobster restaurants. It’s dark and rainy when we get there and lots of cars are trying to find a place to park. Each restaurant has cordoned off the parking places near to it so that only its customers can park there. Scary people wave at you out of the shadows, “Eat my lobster, park here, eat my lobster, park here.” Finally we park and head to Casa De Laungustino. We order the critters done the local way – split in half and then deep fried. First though comes really good chips and two kinds of salsa, then this seafood soup. Then the lobsters arrive with butter for dipping and bowls of rice and beans. So the verdict? It’s good. Not that sweet rich flesh of a Maine lobster, but a lot more flavorfully than a regular little shrimp. This is an odd little town, probably 4 square blocks with probably 35 restaurants. I would like to come back in the day to see what this looks like then.
Tonight it is very rainy and very windy. It’s cold. In the 30's. If it ever got down to the 30's Maui the governor would declare an emergency.
End of Day Two.
--------------------
I left my anti-balding shampoo and anti-aging face wash in the other bathroom with the Jacuzzi tub so today I have to wash my face and hair with shampoo from a gallon size bottle with a pump on it that someone bought at Costco. I am sure I will be bald and look 10 years older when I get out of the shower. Actually my skin looks great. Hmmm…this could save me a lot of money. Anyway, it is bright sunshine out today with huge surf. I will try to be less of a chicken shit American tourist today.
We are going to Rosarito, which is just past the Lobster town to the north. We drive through Lobster town again to see what it really looks like during the day. People still pop out of the shadows, “Eat my lobster, eat my lobster…”
Soon we see Jesus again. 
This is so annoying it must have been done by some Canadian missionaries. We get two blocks north of Jesus and suddenly the NPR stations come in again.
On the beach there are lots of new houses being built. They all have fences around them. The closer we get to Rosarito the more we notice that the fences all have stone animals on top. They are all coyotes. Hundreds of little coyote statues line the road sitting on top of fences for several miles. Their little mouths all open in a silent howl. That is my attempt at literary writing for today. 
As we pull into Rosarito we see dozens of stores selling backyard stone art, backyard furniture, those Mexican fire burning clay things that you can put in your backyard. Rosarito appears to be the backyard capital of the world.
The city is pretty much lined up north/south along the beach. There are a number of high-rise hotels that it turns out are primarily used by white American college kids to throw up on during spring break. It has similar shops to Ensenada, but for some reason this place does not bug me at all. Maybe it’s because it’s a beach town, or maybe I am just over my first day culture shock. I also don’t see any little boys in black uniforms carrying machine guns.
I buy a whole bunch more masks and bottles of Mexican vanilla for people back home.
There are a number of huge nightclubs right on the beach. I can’t imagine what a nightmare this place must be during spring break.
In both Ensenada and Rosarito people are always trying to cell you things. They just walk up to you with some silver rings or a stick or a Tweety Bird lamp and say "I give you special price." Even on the beach people come up and try to sell you things. “Hey you want to sit right here on the beach and have a margarita and some tacos? I will bring you a chair. First margarita is free!”
Lunch is this crazy Almodovar experience. We go to this place called Macho Taco. This toothless old guy in his 70’s is our waiter. He’s crazy. He dances. He sings. He hugs everyone. He rubs the top of Mark’s head and says that Mark looks just like his ex-uncle who was a gay priest. The uncle always invited our waiter to “the party going on under his robes”, but our waiter knew better and did not RSVP. This is all before we order drinks.
We order fish burritos. Once again they come with lettuce on them. Boo! But they come with good salsa, limes, greenish tomatoes, and cucumbers on the side. The waiter comes back and drinks one of our beers in one gulp without breathing.
The table next to us appears to be Tea Leoni and Lucinda Williams out having lunch with their mothers. The waiter is taking pictures of them and fondling Tea Leoni’s mother’s breasts.
These two nuns are walking around the restaurant judging everyone. I know they have rulers up their long leaves and they are just waiting to slap someone with them. I don’t make eye contact.
I go upstairs to pee and there is another toothless guy in the bathroom. He doesn’t really speak English but he has a sign that says I need to tip him for handing me a paper towel after I wash my hands. The sign also says I should pee twice so that I tip him twice since this is his only source of income. I do. This reminds me of that old Bette Midler joke where she encountered this bathroom tipping thing the first time she went to Europe. She was like, “Why do I have to tip you? I did all the work!”
The drive back is nice. It’s warm and sunny. The housekeeper has picked up fish and shrimp for us to cook for dinner. I am over my white boy racist Mexico hating phase now. I am in a good mood now.
For dinner I marinate the shrimp in lime juice, garlic, and paprika, then grill them for just a second. We eat them with forks while standing in front of the grill.
We have these white fish fillets that I think are Tilapia. I marinate them in the same lime, garlic juice and grill them too. We make some rice and beans, and have our own little fish burritos with the grilled fish, avocado, tomatoes, warm tortillas (and no goddamned lettuce!). There is a perfect cloudless sunset. I am on vacation.
End of Day three.
---------------------------------------------------------
So right now I am sitting in the sun by the pool listening to KCRW on my laptop and drinking a Margarita. I think I am stealing wi-fi from the construction guys building this fakey looking Greek house 2 doors down. I am getting sunburned.
I am starting to like this place now and I feel really bad about hating Ensenada so much. I consider going back and changing by blog so I don’t sound like such a jerk, but that would not be right. I am a jerk.
I don’t know why I didn’t think they have winter in Mexico, but they sure as hell do. It got down to 37 degrees last night. Makes sense. It's farther north than I thought.
Today is kind of a lazy day. We go over to a nearby beach. Immediately people try to sell us things. The beach is made of brown sand and kind of dirty, but it’s long and very wide. Huge waves break off shore and then gently roll in. Not at all like a Hawaiian beach, but way better than being in Seattle right now.
We go have lunch at La Fonda. Katie Holms and her body guard are sitting next to us. Mark has a giant bowl of clams, Lynnette has some shrimp with pasta, and I have the shrimp stuffed with crab and wrapped in bacon again. Why not?
There are lots of surfers in the ocean in front of us and these ultra-light planes are going up and down the beach.
I am on vacation. Another Margarita please.
After lunch we go to this local store down the road and get firewood, limes, tequila, chilies, just the essentials. In the bar at the house we find this fake Cointreau for the margaritas called Controy. Isn’t that weird?
We play cards, eat fish tacos made of some different mystery fish, and learn that Gerald Ford is dead and Saddam Hussein is about to be executed. I don't want to deal with this. I am on vacation.
It’s our last full day here. I turn on the Satellite TV and learn that Saddam was executed last night. The news channels are going crazy over this. They are showing pictures! I cannot believe this. I change channels and find these goofy networks I have not heard of before: The Baby Channel, The Water Channel, and the Cow Channel. There are too many channels. We cannot get any Mexican TV here, only US channels. It would have been cool to see TV from Mexico City.
We go back to Roisarito today for lunch. We have mole (mole-ay), which is a thick brown Mexican sauce made with chocolate. I love it but Lynnette is not a fan. They start us off with this soup of shredded chicken, rice, and limes. It’s like Mexican Pho. My mole is grilled chicken, the sauce, and then a little bit of that white Mexican cheese on top. No lettuce in sight! They bring us this nice dessert which is tamales filled with banana. Very cool.
This was interesting:
Mexico Lessons learned:
• Stop at the border and find someone to ask you questions. Do not break in to the county.
• Find someone who speaks English and ask where to by fresh fish.
• Don’t be afraid of little mom and pop stores, they have everything and are fun.
• Learn some Spanish and just try to use it.
• They have winter in Mexico, bring warm clothes.
• At the Pemex station you have to punch in how much gas you want, then go in and pay, then pump this gas. Don’t spend an hour figuring this out like we did.
• The “Scenic Road” is the Toll Road.
• Do not get pesos, use dollars. You are not being culturally sensitive. Pesos make everyone mad.
• Tecate beer is good.
• You have to ask for the check in restaurants.
• Jesus hates NPR stations.
• Bananamex bank cash machines do not work all the time.
We go outside to look at the stars. There is a bright moon and the waves are pretty. Mark and I heard this thump and then a muffled moan. A very not drinking Lynnette has fallen down near the pool. She can’t cry out for help because she has a chocolate chip cookie stuck in her mouth. We pull the cookie out and learn that she may have broken her arm. I think about calling 911, but I can’t because they don’t have that here. What should we do? Go to an emergency room in San Diego? I call my friend Lisa who used to be a nurse. Her kids break their arms on a regular basis so she is an expert on this. She has us poke Lynnette’s finger nails in to see if the blood comes back or if they stay white. Lynnette starts to complain that that the poking hurts so we stick the cookie back in. The fingernails do not stay white so this is supposed to be good. We find an Ace Bandage and make sling for her. We decide to wait till the morning to see if she needs a doctor. We give her some valium and more cookies and go to bed. High drama!
In the morning she is sore but OK. We pack up and head for the border. Of course we get lost without our police escort, but eventually we get there. The line is not too bad, but of course there are lots of people selling things. They jump between cars and knock on the windows. I am ready to not be here anymore. The border guard asks us if we have any guns or drugs to bring into America. We say no and we waves us through.
We drive into San Diego and head over the bridge to Coronado. We want to have breakfast at the Hotel Del Coronado. The hotel is beautiful and very busy.
Brunch costs $55 per person. It’s amazing. All the champagne you can drink, the food just goes on forever and the service is impeccable. There are very rich people from all over the world here. I am trying to have a good time but I can’t stop thinking about all the waste here and how far $55 would go for one of those grandmas sitting on the sidewalk begging 20 miles away. I am not a Communist and I am not a Republican. I don’t know how I should feel about this. I decide to have more champagne and think it over.
Driving back to the airport later I remember that when I was a little kid I thought San Diego was spelled Sandy Ego like the frozen waffles. I also remember that I did not like Hawaii on my first trip either. I will give Mexico another try...not soon.
Oops! Almost forgot the masks. I bought lots of masks:
Here's the happy family. Guess I'd better go to Maui for more. 2 months and counting.
No comments:
Post a Comment