Ensenada, Mexico via Los Angeles, California: End of an Amazing 8 Months of World Travel

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Los Angeles, California: End of an Amazing 8 Months of World Travel

5 days ago we docked in Los Angeles harbor. As was appropriate, the skies were crying with rain and clouds as our 8 months of traveling has come to an end (almost);-) but...it also feels good to be "home".



This double trip to Asia and South America, has taken us to the Aleutian Islands… Kushiro, Kanazawa, Fukuoka and Nagasaki, Japan… Incheon, Seoul, the DMZ and Jeju City, South Korea… Mainland China including Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai, Beijing, Xian, Chongqing, Yangtze River, Wuhan, Xingang… Hong Kong, Kowloon, Lantau and Macau Islands of Hong Kong… Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam… Penang and Langkawi, Malaysia… Phuket and Bangkok, Thailand and Singapore. Our 6 week interim travels took us to Utah, Nevada and California before taking off to Antigua, St. Lucia, Grenada, Barbados, Trinidad/Tobago, Santos, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Buenos Aires, Ushuaia and Puntarenas Argentina… Colonia del Sacramento and Montevideo, Uruguay… The Falkland Islands to say hello to the penguins ;-)… Cape Horn, Santiago, Coquimbo, La Serena and Valparaiso, Chile… Pisco, Paracas, San Martin Harbor, Callao and Lima, Peru… Puntarenas, Costa Rica, San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua …Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and home to Los Angeles, California, USA!

As we write this we can hardly believe our great fortune in being able to see so much! We got off the ship on Saturday (which had been our home for 49 days) and said good bye to our waiter, Sergj from the Ukraine who we hope will write us, our room steward Emilio from the Philippines who never let us lift a finger, and some of the new friends from around the world that we have made.

Sean with Go Sedan was waiting for us with a car to take us back to our car which we had stored in Santa Ana, California. A short 40 minutes later, we were on the road to Ensenada, Mexico where we are spending 7 days at a home in the Baja Country Club. As we traveled down to Mexico, we realized that we were pretty whipped so we decided to stay over in Chula Vista and go on down to Mexico on Sunday morning. This also gave us a chance to pick up some food for the week as well as go online to Mexican car insurance. Dinner? We were ready for an In-N-Out burger ;-)

Sunday was beautiful and we headed for the border. Easy to cross the border with no back up and very easy to get to the toll road as we went around Tijuana. There were three toll booths between the border and Ensenada and each was a $2.10 toll and they would take US dollars or pesos. The scenery got prettier and prettier as we headed the 90 minutes south. Eventually we saw coastline that looked like Northern California with rocky cliffs and the beautiful ocean waves breaking. In Ensenada we wound our way through town and past the cruise ship docks and headed south out of Ensenada. We passed local businesses, tourist shops and agricultural areas as well as Walmart, COSTCO, Starbucks, Subway, Circle K and most of the well-known brands from the US. A few miles past Ensenada we turned off to the left towards the mountains at Esmeralda Road. We made our way 3 miles to a beautiful canyon where the house is located in a community on a mature golf course.

The house is beautiful and the neighborhood so quiet you can hear the birds. The back of the house faces the golf course and the scenery in the canyon is spectacular. I don’t think we’ll ever want to leave ;-) We took two days to read, rest and walk then yesterday headed to the wine country in the Valle de Guadalupe. A beautiful ride through rolling vineyard country between Ensenada and Tecate.

We decided on two wineries, L.A. Cetto a huge winery that exports to 47 countries and was founded by an Italian ;-) and Dona Lupe Organic Winery and Bakery, a small local business. Both were located at KM 73 on Route 3.

We took a tour with the lovely Alejandra at L.A. Cetto. We saw where the grapes are crushed, the oak barrels and stainless steel tanks and the modern bottling plant which only bottles the best of the wine. The rest is sent to their major bottling plant in Tijuana. This vineyard has 1500 acres but they have 4 more vineyards around the state. The grounds were beautiful with flowers blooming everywhere. After the tour we had a wine tasting in their modern and beautiful tasting room. We bought some white wine and olives processed on the ranch.

Next, we headed down the dirt road to Dona Lupe Organic Winery and Bakery. Very different from L.A. Cetto. This is a local operation and they have artisans selling jewelry, a woman doing massages, a bakery, pizzas for lunch and a gift shop. We stopped for a pizza and got there just as a Carnival Cruise ship tour bus was leaving…perfect timing...and we smiled thinking how nice it was to be on our own instead of a tour ;-). Sitting on the vine covered patio waiting for our pizza we began to hear the most beautiful man’s voice singing Mexican songs. He was cleaning some barrels on the other side of the fence from the patio and we were enthralled. When he finished singing everyone in the patio area clapped and shouted bravo. Since our pizza hadn’t arrived yet, I decided to get a chair massage from Miravelle. $5 for 10 minutes. Oh, what a wonderful experience!!! Your eyes are closed having a massage in an orchard, with beautiful songs being sung over the fence and birds chirping and a soft warm breeze blowing… yes. We couldn’t ask for a better ending to months of wandering the world!

Real life starts next week ;-) We hope you have enjoyed traveling with us as we’ve loved sharing it with you. Jean and Cope

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Comments

[Rafael]

All Right!!
Wow! What a life experience! Too bad it's back to the grind, huh?

[Carlette Randall]

8 months of world travel
It was awesome! It was as if I was there with you. Thanks for sharing. I looked forward to reading about your experiences and seeing the pictures.