Saturday, April 25, 2015

La Jolla Beach, Ensenada to Mama Espinoza's, El Rosario


Met a great guy, American, at La Jolla Beach while getting packed up in the morning. He’d been all over Baja and gave us a bunch of tips in terms of places to go that are a little more ‘off the beaten track’. We then had a great breakfast at a place right in front of the campground – the first of many servings of Huevos Rancheros.

We hit the road, Mexico 1, heading south not really knowing where we’d stop/stay. We’d heard about this ranch we could go visit and stay at, but we were also super keen to get further south as everyone has been telling us the ‘real’ Baja is ‘down there’… although interestingly everyone also agrees that there’s no point going further south than La Paz because it’s all been fairly Americanised for tourists down there. They’re talking about Cabo etc. We’ll see…

Did a lot of riding today and almost ended up staying at this amazing house out by a lagoon, which a guy living next door said we could have for $100 USD a night. It seemed too good to be true – and it was. The owner, rung on the phone by Pablo, the dude we’d bumped into, was an American and wanted a lot more money than that. He got shirty on the phone with me and told me “this is NOT how you do it, just showing up and expecting to stay”… I tried to explain that we were just exploring, met Pablo, and heard about the house… blah blah blah, and could see it was going nowhere. We apologized to Pablo, and hit the road again.

And I’m so glad we did, because we ended up spending the night at Mama Espinoza’s in El Rosario. This place was great! I’d heard about it before we came, and so we sorta knew it was there. This is one of the first stops on the Baja 1000, and a lot of the racers eat and stay at Mama Espinoza’s. We got a room straight away and hit the bar/restaurant where I had some of the best fish tacos I’ve ever eaten, washed down with a few beers and a jug of margherita for dessert. Mama Espinoza’s daughter and grandson were running the place, and apparently Mama is still alive at 108 years old!!! They were really great people, and looked after us well. We got T-shirts and there’s been a lot of concern since about who got what colour and who can wear their T shirt when.


It’s tough on the road.

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