Loreto Mexico January 2015 | On the road...

It’s Sunday morning as we head out of El Rosario headed for Tecate and California. We had no idea what to expect in terms of travel time or border waiting time, but we didn’t expect to roll into the outskirts of San Diego in the dark, hungry, dirty and tired. It’s been a long day.

Neither of us remembers quite so many small towns between El Rosario and Ensenada. Apart from the up-and-over mountain driving, it seems there’s just one after another. Every town has its Apostolic Church, a Sunday market, a Pemex, and a bathroom! Being Sunday, there are busy people everywhere: men, women and children going to church, going to the market.

We obviously missed the rush, having arrived in January.  Today there are convoys of travel trailers coming at us on the narrow one lane highway, and truck after truck after truck hauling goods to and from the US and Mexico. Opportunities to pass are limited. That of course does not deter some. To all of you who asked about the drive, and to whom I said it was no big deal, I take it back. This section has some poor road conditions, and now at least, tonnes of traffic. Literally.

The high sierra gives way to an expansive valley, and we enter an agricultural area. It’s clearly a huge industry and we assume fuels the economy and feeds the population in all these small towns. Scanning the valley in every direction, you can pick out the white gleam of the sheds and canvases that protect the tender crops from heat or birds, we’re not sure which. This is where our food comes from. Those strawberries you will be rushing to grab at Superstore in March are in the ground now. They may be labelled Driscoll’s or Giant or some other Watsonville, California producer, but I guarantee that when we get there tomorrow the ground will be bare and brown. Their early product comes from right here in northern Baja Mexico. Here, the crops are in, many of the fields are green with vegetables, and a few berries are starting to show. We get occasional glimpses of the Pacific.

As we head out from Colinet, the road smooths out a bit, but then it returns to winding and climbing, the high mountains now blocking the view of the ocean. Here we go again. Bright yellow signs warning of sharp curves, speed limits jumping up to 80 then down to 40 and back up to 60. Did I mention the animal crossing signs? There’s one about every kilometre, and yes there are animals—cows mostly but also burros, horses and sometimes goats—along the side of the road. Fortunately the signs are more frequent than the animals! There’s a patch of nopales, ready to be harvested, cleaned, sliced and sold or eaten. It’s the soft green cactus sold as a vegetable that I like to add to a stir-fry or scrambled eggs. It soaks up as much butter and garlic as you can take. Sometimes you can buy it Edmonton at Lucky 97, ready to cook and eat.

Down we go again, from 250m to 150m. We can’t be far from Ensenada now. We just saw our first vinicola. La Cetto. They make a nice Cabernet. We are back up to 450m and climbing (you are getting the picture aren’t you?) There are 7 cars lined up behind a semi-trailer up this hill, now 6, now 3 including us, which means there are 4 vehicles in the oncoming lane passing the semi, and each other, racing to be out front. Whew. I’m glad that’s over with.

How quickly things change. We are sitting in front of Starbucks, drinking lattes. To the right is the Bank of Nova Scotia, and across from it HSBC and Burger King. Home Depot is across the parking lot, and Walmart across the street. We are in Ensenada. While Annie fusses, we enumerate our losses. The coffee is not the sweet smooth Chiapas coffee we came to love, there are no foamy happy faces to make us smile,  no chocolate swirls that say Carol and Margarita. No Luis to talk about his soccer match, no Poloa. Loreto is behind us.

We need to move on. We have 100 km to go and at this morning’s pace it will be midnite before we get to California. Once we get through Ensenada we will head up through wine country toward Tecate, the border crossing, not the beer. My turn to drive.

It’s at least two hours before we hit the border. Tecate is tricky but following the signs to the crossing we find ourselves at the bottom of a long hill lined with cars, single file. It is 430. We creep our way up the hill, while vendors pass by offering chocolate bars, nuts and candies, water and pop, tacos, tortillas, gum…those are just the ones I remember. Annie is howling in the back seat, and pawing at Margaret to get out. There’s nowhere to go. We read, we fuss, we fuss, we read. At 6:05 it’s our turn. We hand over our passports, he takes a quick glance at each of us, scans our passports, and we are breezed through immigration faster than I can say Canadian, eh.

California. We’d booked a hotel while sitting in line, so we set the GPS and trusted her to get us here. The night was as black as pitch, but we reckon the landscape didn’t chang much, and except for the double yellow cat’s eyes down the centre of the road, and a brilliant white line along the side, the road didn’t change much either. An hour later, we are here. One more day and we are in Santa Cruz.