Both Sides of Baja
by Margaret Fleming
We took an interesting trip last month wherein we saw both sides of the Baja California peninsula. We had business in Ensenada, and we wanted to visit a large new housing development in San Felipe, so we planned to drive across the peninsula from Ensenada and see a bit of the country.
Ensenada is an interesting city to visit. We always enjoy the drive down from San Diego with the ocean on our right and miles of beautiful beaches below the highway. Ensenada is an attractive and energetic city--with tourists, fishing, cruise ships, residential neighborhoods, and industrial plants. The weather is delightfully cool and the air smells fresh. Many of the houses are painted in pastel colors that remind me of a Cezanne painting as they climb up the hillsides from the center of the city.
The friends we stayed with have a home high up on one of the hills with a panoramic view of the city and the ocean--another Cezanne painting. The second day we were there, they took us out to their beach home located on a peninsula south of the city. It wasn't right on the water, but a walk of 100 yards or so took us to a gorgeous beach. I walked out into the water while John relaxed on the sand. Looking down, I could see millions of tiny golden specks in the water. When I came ashore and looked more carefully, I saw that the sand on the beach had more of the tiny specks. It was indeed a beach of gold. Since our book on buying and selling Mexican real estate is entitled Beaches of Gold, we thought this was a good omen. I suppose it was what they call fool's gold, but I don't mind being a fool once in a while.
Returning to the house after our dip, we found our hostess and two of her nieces busy cooking brochettes on the grill. They had skewered shrimp, octopus, fish, lobster, onion, green pepper, and tomato for the brochettes and served them with tostadas, ceviche, tuna salad, and wine. It was a really delicious meal. We especially enjoyed chatting with one of the nieces, who is an elementary school teacher. Sitting outside on one of the many porches gave us views of the surrounding ocean, estuary, and mountains. When the sun went down, it shone through the clouds and turned the landscape into another beach of gold.
We got up early the next morning and started on our trip across the peninsula. On our way out of Ensenada, we passed a gigantic electric plant built into the side of a hill. In Europe it would have been a cathedral, and it did look something like one. But in spite of this monument to modernity, the traditional religious impulse is clearly present as well. We passed a shrine built into a big rock on another hillside, and later a little cluster of houses with a sign that said El Señor de los Aceites (Our Lord of the Olive Oil) and another that said La Solución es Cristo (the solution is Christ). The words Agua Viva (Living Water) were painted on a rocky outcrop above the hamlet, probably another Biblical reference. A little later we saw a ridge of jagged stones silhouetted against the morning sun like a giant crown, evocative of a religious impulse even older than Christianity.
Everywhere there were contrasts between the timeless and the contemporary. We drove through green valleys punctured by huge boulders, in some of which sheep grazed as they have from time immemorial. Yet in other pastures huge irrigation devices watered the crops with modern efficiency. In one place loco weeds covered the ground underneath a telephone tower on the hilltop. Along a little stream trees spread their gray-green leaves in a lacy fanfare, while across the road a sleek white plane waited outside a hangar. It looked like about a 30-passenger size, and we wondered what function it fulfilled.
We passed through several small villages, probably ejidos. One called Leyes de La Reforma appeared to consist primarily of a church and a Tecate depository (God and Mammon?). Another called Heroes de la Independencia had a church, a stone monastery, a restaurant, and an auto parts store. A larger village called Valle de la Trinidad was situated in a valley. As we came over the top of a hill, we saw it below. Hovering over the entire settlement was a layer of fine white mist, making it appear like a ghost town, visible only once in a great while like Brigadoon in the Scottish fable. As we descended into the main part of town, we noticed a new Pemex gas station on our right. Stopping for gas, we got into a conversation with the attendant, Ricardo Zepeda, who spoke English very well, having lived in the U.S. for several years. We learned that this is the only gas station between Ensenada and the main coast road to San Felipe.
The town of Valle de la Trinidad was quite a bit bigger than the ejidos we had come through. It boasted an octagon-shaped church, a Coca-Cola depository, a super-market, a billiard hall, a car wash, a cafe that advertised "Mexican Food," a baseball park with bleachers, and a huge house on the hill with two domes. We decided the house must belong to the town's first citizen, either the mayor or the Pemex station owner.
After we passed the divide, the weather became suddenly hot and the terrain different. Looking ahead, we saw a sea of white across the horizon and decided it must be white sand. On this side, the landscape changed dramatically. It was now a desert, brown, barren, and monotonous all the rest of the way to San Felipe.
El Dorado Estates is an oasis in the midst of this desert. Here we found a thriving city. In addition to many residential units already built and being built, there was a restaurant, a general store, a bar, an ATM machine, a laundry, a swimming pool, a golf course, tennis courts--all the amenities vacationing or retired Americans could want. We drove around some of the areas under construction and were quite amazed to see that sewers and sidewalks were being installed. This development is about 2 hours south of Mexicali and is a haven for American retirees. There they can live much more cheaply than in the U.S. We had a magnificent breakfast in the restaurant and talked to some of the American salespeople working there. One of them, Mike, was from New York City, so he and John hit it off right away. We may be hearing more from El Dorado, which means literally not beach of gold, but man of gold.
Our trip ended in a one-hour wait to cross the border at Mexicali. It was Sunday, and, as we learned later, traffic is worse then than any other day of the week because so many Mexican-Americans go across to visit their families in Mexico and then have to wait in line to come back. After spending an hour and five minutes to go exactly one mile, we were hot, thirsty, sweaty, and grumpy by the time we finally crossed the line. Why is Mexico so welcoming, we asked ourselves, and the U.S. so unfriendly?
A shower in our motel and dinner in a nice El Centro restaurant restored our spirits. We always enjoy seeing new and different places, and we were able to look back on this trip as an enjoyable and educational experience.
