No Caption Necessary.

No Caption Necessary.










We broke camp early and were on the road about the same time the sun was peeking over the mountains to our East. Just north of Ensenada we encountered our first Militaria Checkpoint. From everything I've read this should be uneventful, but we were nervous nonetheless. I stopped at a Mexican with a M16 and said 'Hola'. He replied 'Buenas Dias blah babbledy bla bla'. I gave my standard reply, 'no habla espanol'. He copied my reply back to me, nodded and walked to the back of the van. He returned momentarily and said 'adios'. We smiled, threw out a 'Gracias' and pulled out. Easy.

We imediatly noticed a information booth and pulled in to see if we could obtain a tourist permit or visa which we managed to not get at the initial border crossing. We could we learned, obtain said permit at tthis location, but it was Sunday and they were closed. We had read that we could also obtaind this permit at the port in Ensenada, so we continued our search. We quickly located the Migracion office at the port a few miles down the road. Of course, it was also closed. Oh well, off to find breakfast!

We wandered the streets of Ensenada looking for a street vender to feed us some Juevos Rancheros. I don't know if theres a good part of town or not but we deffinatly weren't in it. People seemed friendly though, and we located a small cart that sold us some tortas and tacos. No eggs, but Cara and My bill was 50 pesos including an orange juice and a tip. Cara discovered, to her dismay, that the OJ was just tang. We also decided drinking mixed juice from unknown sources might not be the best idea for our delicate gringo stomachs, and didn't finish our tang.

The Restaurant with no name.












Stickman!








We found a Super Mercardo (super market) and tried to purchase some water, bleach for disinfecting said water, and a bottle of Margarita mix. The spanish speaking girl at the checkout wouldn't sell us the Margarita mix, presumably it was too potent for gringos such as ourselves. We inquired about buying two 5 gallon jugs of water, and she again refused. I assume her spanish response detailed the terrors we would experience drinking native mexican bottled water, and also the benefits of drinking Margarita mix instead. We made it out with a bottle of bleach and a capri sun looking pouch of lime juice concentrate.

We meandered our way through town, dissapointed at our inability to obtain water or booze. We decided to get out of Ensenada and hopefully find someone willing to sell us water before we dehydrated.

The road south was dotted with small towns, we barely were able to maintain 40kph most of the time. It was slow going. Finally we made it to El Rosario, which promised to be the last fuel stop for 195 miles. We topped off, well, we tried to top off with fuel. All the Pemex stations so far have very high flow pumps and the Donkeys fuel filler goes very slow above 1/2 tank. The most I've been able to get in Mexico has been 3/4 of a tank, and I left El Rosario with about 5/8 of a tank. I think I can make 200 miles on that, and if not I have 5 gallons on the back bumper. I've been getting about 16-17 mpg depending upon speed, I'm sure my slightly larger tires will bring that number down a bit.