Roadtrip!
12 June 2010 | Baja California to San Diego
Always an adventure.....
Our good friend Vicky from the boat Inspiration at Sea flew from El Salvador to La Paz last week so she could drive her van home to Canada. We caught a ride with her when she passed though Santa Rosalia and had a wonderful trip up the Baja with her.
It was a 14 hour day from the time we set out until we were checked in to our hotel in Chula Vista, but it all went very fast with all the amazing scenery along the way. Mexico's Highway 1 that runs the length of the Baja jumps from the Sea of Cortez, then up through the middle and along the Pacific Coast so the terrain was constantly changing and we were fascinated all day long. I snapped lots of pictures through the windows of the moving vehicles -- most places there isn't any shoulder on the narrow two way road to pull over-- both on the way up in the van and then on the bus ride back down and they are posted in our photo gallery under Roadtrip.
The main purpose of this adventure was to get to San Diego and buy some supplies that aren't available down here (at least at a reasonable price) and especially some things we wouldn't be able to bring down on an airplane. Specifically bottom paint for our planned haulout next fall and some special liquid cleaners for the windows and such, plus the CO2 cartridges for our soda maker (by Soda Stream -- we just LOVE it -- I'll put a link to their web page to the right).
We enjoyed a good night's sleep after the long drive (Vicky continued on for a couple more hours to a friends house in Newport!) we took the short walk to the nearby Enterprise Car Rental office and got a car for a couple days. We spent the next two days driving around San Diego to gather the various things on our list -- the majority of the purchases being at West Marine. In addition to the boat supplies we purchased food, clothing, water toys, DVDs and a few "household" items.
Back at the motel we removed packaging and played mental Tetris to get all of our purchases into the few bags and backpack that we felt we would be able to manage when we walked across the border to the Tijuana Bus station.
In between all of our running around searching for hard to find items (a new cover for Carly's surfboard for one) we managed to squeeze in some fun and went to the Galley Restaurant at the Chula Vista marina to see one of our favorite entertainers, Gary Seiler, do his regular Wednesday night show there. Then the next day we saw a movie (without subtitles!)
Friday morning we checked out of the motel and returned the car and had them drop us off at the border. Now we'd heard that walking across the border is pretty easy and they don't search everything you bring in, but we were really surprised that they don't even look at your passport! We got out of the car and walked about a block down an open air corridor with a few official looking people milling about, but nobody even looked our way and before we knew it we saw gates that led out into the streets of Tijuana!
That's when the fun began! We knew that the bus station was a short walk from the entry, but we weren't entirely sure where to go. We waited a few minutes by a tourist info booth, but when it didn't open at its scheduled time we walked through the gate where we saw lots of taxis thinking that would be the easiest way to go, even though it's a short distance.
Well, they immediately came to us and I asked how much to the bus station and we were surprised when he answered $15 -- it should have been more like $5. But another man (who seemed to be in charge of the drivers) said it would be $10 so we said what the heck and went with the guy. Terry made the comment that he didn't feel to good about the situation and then when the guy started driving far from the border crossing area (where we had been told by several cruisers we'd find the bus station) we both started getting a little nervous. When we grilled him on where he was going he said to the main bus station and that the one by the border was small and this would be better. Well, that explained the high fare for the trip, but we were still pretty leary about where this guy was taking us as we passed thru some "colorful" parts of Tijuana.
Finally the bus station appeared -- and we were very relieved that we hadn't made some stupid mistake. We were also glad to be out at the big station since it was about a two hour wait till the next bus south, and this station was set up more like a small airport with decent waiting areas and some shops and food vendors.
Then we were off! All set for our 15 hour trip to Santa Rosalia we got comfortable in our seats (unfortunately they weren't as comfortable as I'd hoped -- the buses have seen a lot of miles and even though they are "deluxe" they're old and worn) and enjoyed reading and watching the scenery until darkness fell. Then we read and dozed jumping off the bus at various stops for potty breaks and to stretch our legs.
At 7:00 pm (we started at noon) the driver pulled into a small station and announced that we'd be there one or two hours because something was wrong with the bus and they'd be sending a new one. So our 15 hour trip was getting longer.... Well the driver didn't speak English and there was only one other gringo on board (who spoke a little more Spanish than us) we couldn't really get a good grip on what was wrong with the bus or when the new bus would be coming along. After a couple hours (we could sit in the bus or the station or wander around) we got the idea that the new bus was actually going to be the next southbound bus that was scheduled to leave Tijuana at 4 pm. We kind of suspect that the problem with the bus was that it wasn't full enough (there were only about 12 of us on there since the majority that had filled it in Tijuana had gotten off in Ensenada and points north) and they wanted to save money by combining the two -- much like the airlines are doing now when they cancel flights that aren't full enough.
At 11 pm the bus showed up and we transferred our luggage to the new bus and were on our merry way. This bus was even more uncomfortable than the first one, but we managed to doze and the time actually went fairly quickly. We pulled into the Santa Rosalia station 19 hours after we left Tijuana. Luckily that station is only about a block from the marina so we were quickly back aboard Cetus and putting away all of our new goodies before settling in for a nice long nap.
All and all it was a very good trip, though a few times in the night I did start thinking of the bus ride as a bit more "ordeal" than "adventure", but all's well that ends well and we've got our new stuff!