Nov 9, 2007 Ensenada

The past 2 days have been pretty uneventful but interesting.

The traveling part consisted of driving from Escondidos where I got the bike serviced to San Ysidro (on the American side of the border) where I had to stay over after getting bike insurance. This morning I came from there to Encenada where the Baja race starts.

San Ysidro seemed an odd little place. I had reserved a hotel room and had to drive around abit to find it so I saw a lot of the town. At first it seemed odd that half the place was grotty dirty haphazard place and the other half was beautiful new American malls.

It didn’t take long to realize that the dirty little part was the Mexican part and the nice part was the last stop for Americans to comfy up before crossing into ´the other side´. Ultimately I realized that this is really a suburb of Tijuana.

One thing I found interesting was a lovely and immaculately clean grassy area that ran the length of the town. It was relatively litter free and not a person on it, which is when I realized the 12 foot high fence with razor wire on top was the border. To add to that, there were constantly military looking helicopters over head at all hours of the night.

So this morning with passport, insurance, registration and all documents in hand I was prepped to cross the border. I thought it might be complicated given my month long insurance papers and lack of final destination. I even shaved for it!

With all my prep done I braced myself to cross into new territory, a major national border. I’m on the bike cruising through the road to cross, the road narrows to about 5 lanes and goes under an overpass, then a few hundred yards ahead it opens into 8 lanes with road signs to the coast and other destination. That was it! That was the entire crossing! I never drove under 30 miles an hour and I was through!

I actually felt sorry at one point for the miles long line up people waiting to go through to the American side. I guess that epitomizes the scenario. I did notice 3 Mexican cops behind a fence on the way through, I guess they just stop you if there are interested.

Anyway from there I drove through the crazy looking warzone that is Tijuana and headed for the coast. Tijuana roads were so rough my teeth were literally rattling. On a huge and very old motorcycle this was not a very fun experience or a very good sign of things to come. I have been to Cancun as a tourist and have heard the roads on my general route are ok for my type of bike, but I have never experienced them first hand.

A lovely road awaited me once I got out of Tijuana proper and closer to the coast. The Wing just sails along at 70 like a dream. The road was nice and the litter on the side of it was ample (more on that later) but it was a toll road - 3 stops at $2 usd ($1.25 cdn, gotta love it). 100kms of that and I was in Enceneda.

I asked around and found a hotel room right in the heart of the race stuff. The starting line is one block from my hotel! I will be in there tomorrow trying to find a capacity to become involved in the race. I have already seen some kick ass vehicles…mega trucks and some awesome looking duen buggies. I talked to a few race teams and plan to do more of that tomorrow. I have four days to find a way to get involved with the race.

I walked around abit tonight, had some dinner and bought the pre-requisite bottle of tequila. All stocked up for Mexico!

Adios,

Ron