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Published: January 26th 2014
Pacific Sunset
Playa RosaritoOur six month “visa” to Mexico will soon be expired and we will be ending our visit to the Baja California Peninsula. We are spending our last month in Playa Rosarito, a small beach town just 20 minutes south of the U.S. Border. I put parenthesis around the word visa for a reason. We don’t have one! Technically we are illegal aliens and have been for our entire trip in Baja. We were talking to a local expat and told him of our lack of paperwork and he explained that large portions of the people in Baja are “illegal”. Now knowing that there are so many of “us” gives us the confidence to finally confess our less than correct ways.
When we originally crossed the border at Tijuana back in August we read in Lonely Planet that the Baja Peninsula does not require that travelers stop at Aduana (Customs) to fill out car importation paperwork. This was great news as it is always somewhat of a hassle when we have crossed borders to Mexico or Central American countries in the past. Not only is the paperwork time consuming, but there is usually a fee also and saving some
time and money while travelling is always a good thing.
Mexico has a border “cushion” area of about 30 miles, which allows day tourists to cross the border without too much trouble or paperwork. If you intend to leave this area you should stop at immigration. We didn’t want to stop in busy Tijuana and intended to stop in Ensenada. We really never saw immigration and suddenly found ourselves in the middle of the desert south of Ensenada. We were trying to make time and just never stopped. It bothered us at first, but after a while we kind of forgot about it, unless we were stopped at one of the frequent desert anti-drug checkpoints.
Anyway, now that we are leaving soon we are finally confessing to our lack of “official” status. We have always wanted to live like locals when travelling and perhaps in a strange way, this is the first time we can actually say we aren’t really “tourists”.
We finished our 3 month stay in Cabo San Lucas on a good note. Our son, Michael, came to visit for a little more than a week. It gave us
a reason to retrace our steps and re-visit many of the places we had gone previously during our stay. We took day trips to Todos Santos, Cabo Pulmo and San Jose del Cabo. We visited the most beautiful of the beaches and took several dirt roads into the desert to take in commanding views or just see the huge cacti found there. Whale season is in full swing and we watched whales jumping in the bay almost daily. It was an excellent way to end our 3 month stay. Our stay in Cabo San Lucas was as long as we have been in one place in more than 2 ½ years. At times during our stay we got a little restless, but playing tour guide for a while gave us a new appreciation for the Los Cabos area.
We set off from Cabo early in the morning for our nearly 1000 mile road trip to our new house in Rosarito. We estimated it would take the better part of 3 days, if we stayed on the road for some long days. It was funny to pass our old house in Loreto. We thought we might stay in
Loreto for the night, but we had made good time, so we pushed on to the small town of Mulege, which we arrived in after an almost 400 mile drive. We found a small hotel in downtown just as the sun was going down. We decided to eat in the hotel and enjoyed a nice meal of fish tacos, the house specialty. The night was unusually cold and it turned out we didn’t have a heater in the room. There was no hot water in the morning for showers. We were a little spoiled after our stay in Cabo where both of our condos were equipped with all the luxuries and the weather had been wonderfully warm each day. We made the best of it and got on our way at first light.
North of Mulege the scenery becomes more desert-like and the towns farther apart. The scenery is truly beautiful and unique. We passed volcanoes, cactus and huge piles of rocks in the desert. We got our first view of the Pacific at Guerrero Negro where we had a delicious, simple lunch of Birria (a meat stew) at a small roadside stand. We found a great
Hussong's Cantina- Ensenada
Where the Margarita was invented hotel in a small town at the end of another 400 mile drive. We were careful to make sure they had a heater and hot water and enjoyed a wonderful sleep after a long day of travel.
We arrived in Rosarito the next afternoon and were taken to our new house. We have a beautiful condo on the ninth floor of one of the many complexes that line the Pacific beaches in the area. It is, by far, the nicest place we have lived in so far in our travels. We enjoy wonderful sunsets nightly from our balcony overlooking the ocean. The weather has been unusually warm and very nice during the day. Hardly like winter at all.
Many ex-pats live in the area since it is so close to the border. Almost everyone speaks some English and many large American chains have branches located in the area. There is a bit of a roughness to the area, common in most border town. Rosarito seems to have had a bit of a boom or bust economy, based on the finances of the U.S. During boom times, condominiums, malls and hotels are built. During bust
eras things lay uncompleted and unimproved.
Like the town, many of the people who live in Rosarito seem a little rough around the edges. Border towns always seem to attract a bit of a transient crowd. Rosarito has always been slightly rough, primarily founded during prohibition times in the U.S. when many crossed the border to take advantage of the free flowing alcohol, sunny beaches and relaxed attitude of the locals.
We have enjoyed walking the beach here. While Cabo was at the height of their tourist season, Rosarito seems to be at the slow time for visitors, which has been a nice change. The beaches are generally deserted and it has been pleasant to put on a sweatshirt for the first time in many months.
We took a day trip to Ensenada where we had a nice visit. We toured the famous hotel, Riviera del Pacifico, and had a drink at Hussong’s Cantina, where perhaps the Margarita was invented many years ago. Walking the tourist strip was enjoyable and seeing a cruise ship visiting which we had seen many times in Cabo was interesting.
Overall it seems
like a good place to end our time in Baja. We will soon be going north to drop off our car and fly off to further destinations in just a few weeks. It is nice to soak up our last bit of inexpensive luxury before taking on future travel challenges. We promise that if we make it out of Mexico without problems we will always attempt to be “legal” aliens in the future.
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nanapat
non-member comment
jealous
I think it's so wonderful that you can just blow with the wind like this. You're really very lucky and you have sent some of the best pics. You've captured some dandies. Thanks for including me ! Pat