Ephemerica

Our first day in Mexico actually went pretty smoothly overall. It started by catching the first ferry from Coronado to downtown San Diego. Our first challenge was boarding the trolley (it’s really a light rail, not like the “real” trolley in San Francisco) to the border. We thought we might be able to just lift the loaded bikes onto the trolley, but they were too wide (and heavy!) to get through the doors. So we let the first train go, and changed strategy for the next train. We took all the bags off, and then I put the bikes on while Cindy put the bags on. We fought against the stupid doors closing on us, and a nearby couple helped throw some of our bags on the train. The trick we discovered is that the train can’t go anywhere if you block the doors so they don’t close .

From the trolley stop at the border, we walked the bikes through the border, picked up our tourist passes, and then continued into downtown Tijuana. We had been advised by a friend that the free road (libre) out of Tijuana was quite dangerous for bikes, and so we should bus the first part of the road between Tijuana and Rosarito. As we walked to the bus station (on Revolucion Ave, the main drag of Tijuana), we were told about 20 times by store owners that there was “free parking in back for bicycles”. Cindy and I were the only ones riding the bus to Rosarito that day. The bus takes the toll road (cuota), and although there were places where I thought to myself, “This is the safe road?!?”, it had a wide, hard shoulder most of the way. The bus driver insisted that it was OK for bikes to ride on the toll road, even as we were passing large pictorial “No Bicycles” signs.

We had decided to stay just south of Rosarito in a town called Puerto Nuevo, so we DID actually do some biking our first day . We continued down Hwy 1, which had a very wide shoulder as we rode through Rosarito, and then narrowed to two-lane road for the rest of the ride. There were a few scary parts, but the cars/trucks were happy to give us plenty of room as they passed. Actually, the scariest part was when a California driver slowed down behind us because they were afraid to pass us with the oncoming traffic. Well, that only prompted the impatient Mexican drivers behind us to start passing us on the shoulder on the right! Anywho, one hour and 17 km later, we were checking into our hotel in Puerto Nuevo.

We’re staying at the Grand Baja resort, which is a very gorgeous resort—and also very empty right now in the off-season. Puerto Nuevo is famous for its “Lobster Village”, where there are about 20 lobster joints in one block. After being promised various food deals from most of the restaurants, we found a place that looked good that didn’t actually acost us as we walked past. Then we came back to the hotel and nursed our culture shock with some good old American TV.

Cindy became sick right before we left San Diego, so I think we’ll stay here another night to give her another day of recovery before we tackle the ~50 km ride to Ensenada. I’ve been having a few symptoms of her cold too, but I’m not full blown yet…keeping my fingers crossed.

Posted by Matthew on January 18th, 2007 | Filed under: Mexico