Around The World In 80 Waves

I need some forms which wasn’t given on way south so have had to drive 50 miles back to cross over and get them 2nd time around. More to follow.

I’m hoping to get my first Mexican surf in tomorrow so a bit of planning is in order. I also try to update the blog too, but no real surprises when my best laid plans are hampered because the mobile phone’s internet doesn’t work as promised now that I have gone south of the border! I waste half an hour trying to sort it phoning the USA helpdesk, being far too politely told by everybody that they are going to sort it, even though nobody does and I am cut off once and put through to the wrong department twice. They can’t even hear me telling me them my phone number and I find I am practically shouting down the phone in my hotel room. My sister describes this as ‘doing a Robert’ and I don’t want to be that me on this trip, so eventually I just hang up and give it up as a bad loss. I can look forward to being metaphorically shafted by a Mexican telephone company next.

Mobile phone companies worldwide please take note. You are a service industry, and should try providing one that people actually want. Stop being such money grabbing b@stards, spend some money training your staff so that everybody you actually allow to answer your incoming calls can really help anybody with everything relating to their account, be it a technical or customer service issue. Go on treat yourself and your customers to some spare capacity in your call centres too.

If my tailor provided me with an equivalent level of service that was just good enough, I would be walking around in an overpriced thong that fell apart as soon as I went abroad and nobody wants that!

Rant over.

Ensenada is where you can get a boat ride out to surf the monster waves which break off these islands a short distance from the shore. The most famous break is called Killers and regularly features in the annual biggest wave ridden contests. This shot I found online was taken there, and I think it is so named either just because it is so dangerous or because killer whales pass regularly through the break. Perhaps somebody can enlighten me?

However because of the distances I need to travel in a short time period whilst in Mexico I pass on this option and push on southwards where I will go for my first Mexican surf session in some of the lovely waves I have already seen breaking alongside the highway. It was a grim day yesterday with strong onshore winds coming from the West and rain falling all day and night, so I’m hopeful for a bit of sunshine later to tempt me in.

Highway 1 is the toll road south towards the tip of the Baja pensular and I am keen to put a few miles between me and the border.

The coastal scenery is epic and I drive all the way to Ensenada stopping only at a cash point on Rosarito, where each ATM was furnished with rear view mirrors like the ones on your car so that you can see who might be creeping up on you.

Not very reassuring, but I take out a few thousand pesos and immediately stash as much of it as I can well away from my wallet.

There is a festival going on in Ensenada when I arrive, which makes navigating tad tricky because they have blocked off all the roads, but I’m not quite ready to mingle with the locals yet, particularly because the first two hotels I stop at that had secure parking, blatantly try to rip me off. It is quite funny really but the 220 pesos price for a room advertised in huge neon signs outside (Approximately £11) magically increases to 800 as soon as I open my mouth. When I question the difference between the sign and the price quoted I get some bull about the sign being the rate for only 4 hours or it is because of the festival. Done with a smile to boot! I thank both politely, but say no thanks too!

I had better get used to life perceived as a rich gringo I suppose, because I will be in Mexico for most of February. Either that or cultivate my Spanish skills and/or my moustache further!

I drive on and it is getting dark so I don’t want to push my luck and am glad when I find Motel ‘El Camino’ on the edge of town run by a charming old lady. She doesn’t speak English and it is immediately clear my Spanish is non-existent, but we get by with mime and writing. She offers me a rate of 350 which is probably still a bit cheeky, but I can live with it for one night and at least there is no sign here to let me know how much less others may be charged. The room is clean and after unloading the car I settle in by watching Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade dubbed in Spanish on the telly in my room, and scoff a mountain of ham and brie sandwiches that are washed down with a couple of bottles of beer.

I drive to the border and join the huge queue to go to Mexico. Border was closed yesterday due another USA nut job going mental with a gun, and the fear that he might try to flee to Mexico, so the queue is even bigger than normal. There is massive security everywhere on both sides of the border and I don’t think I have ever seen so many machine guns being brandished. However I am just waived through when I eventually drive up to the checkpoint. My research told me I would need the Mexican Insurance that I sorted whilst in the USA, but also to arrange a cash bond for the car as well as a temporary importation permit at the border, but I didn’t see anywhere to do that. I am hoping this will not be an issue. Time will tell…

Straight away I turn right alongside the border fence and head back towards the sea passing through Tijuana, which featured in my favourite film Big Wednesday. However despite the surfers running into big trouble in the film whilst here, it still made it look much more glamorous than the reality where huge numbers of desperate people line the border looking longingly north and trying to figure out how to get across. I don’t fancy their chances much at Tijuana. I think the guys from the Great Escape would have problems here!

I will use this outline of the country filled in with the flag to explain my route south. I am crossing the border on the western edge and will be going immediately through Tijuana. I am then going to work my way down the peninsular which is called Baja California, before catching a ferry to the mainland from La Paz at the bottom of the peninsular. At the mainland I will be travelling south towards Guatemala staying as close to the Pacific coast as I can, and hopefully bagging a few waves along the way.

I am told that at times I will be lucky to find a road let alone a telephone signal or a wi-fi link from here on.  As a consequence I can’t guarantee being able to update the blog as often as I have tried to through the USA. I will still be making notes and updating you all when I get the chance but the batches of updates you have seen thus far may get less frequent but bigger in size. I am hoping my US phone will work for part of the journey and that should allow me to update some things, but I can’t be sure.

I am somewhat behind my orginal schedule already and have been invited to a big party in Guatemala at the start of March so will have to put my foot down through Mexico if I am to make up some time and get there.

I have only just realised how big Mexico is. I have about 2000 miles to travel through so travelling Speedy Gonzales style will be necessary!

My own Mexican moustache is well underway (would you trust this man with your gardening?) and when coupled with my tan should help me look a little less Gringo.

I have been given some advice for travelling through:

• Dont drink the water
• Dont drive at night
• Dont argue with anybody, especially the police
• Dont play my uke at any parties for members of drug cartels

The little green surf machine is as prepped as it will ever be for the trip so today I’m heading for the border.

Hasta Luego!

I have my last afternoon in the United States free, and use it to check out San Diego. I have seen so many big buildings in the USA that the city skyline is not amazing but it is definitely a pretty city. There is so much to do but I dont have enough time to see it all.

I head straight down to the harbour area and stumble across this memorial to Bob Hope in recognition for his morale work with US servicemen. The statue I am leaning against is actually surrounded by other life sized figures of servicemen listening to him and there is a looped recording of his gags when he visited the troops out on Vietnam, Korea, etc so that one of his shows appears to be recreated.

I go for wander around the dock where there are some classic sailboats, working fishing vessels and countless pleasue boats.

However the biggest ship in the city harbour is the USS Midway which you can see in the background here with the aircraft lined up on its flight deck.

The Midway was the largest ship in the world until 1955, as well as the first US warship to be too big to transit the Panama Canal.

Even that is eclipsed by the USS Carl Vinson moored over at the US Naval base across the bay, which is a Nimitz class supercarrier boasting two nuclear reactors and over 6,000 servicemen and women will be stationed on this boat when it goes to sea. At the end of a recent infamous mission it was involved in, Osama Bin Laden’s body was brought back to the boat after the operation which killed him. Then after a religeous ceremony the body was buried at sea from this ship.

I see two more carriers in the port area, which make me laugh because the UK cant even afford to share one with France at the moment! One US aircraft carrier has a more powerful air force than 70% of all the other countries in in the world. Perhapss they would be willing to lend us one?

I drive up over the fantastically curved Coronado Bridge towards the coast and see the Hotel Del Coronado which was where all of the resort scenes were filmed for Billy Wilder’s masterpiece ‘Some Like It Hot’, which starred Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. The hotel was supposed to be in Florida in the film.

From there I went along the stretch of sand known as the Silver Spur southwards towards the Mexican border, which is now within sight. There is just the town of Imperial beach and its Pier left before crossing the border itself. I go for a stroll along the pier and enjoy some fish and chips, whilst watching both the dolphins and the locals fishing off the side of it. Actually bagging this shot of one of them.

For my last night in the USA Joanne cooks me a lovely meal. I havent had home cooked food in over two months so it is a real treat and to wash things down we tuck into some of the fantastic wine I bought at the other end of California. We are chatting for hours but as soon as Joanne is trying to spoil my yawn (I had earlier explained how you do it) I know it is time to go to bed.

So I am stood in the queue for the checkout at Staples where I am buying a new external hard drive (I am sending my old one with copies of all my precious USA photos home) and all of a sudden a tail whips over the shoulder of the lady in front of me nearly taking my eye out!
The lady has gone shopping with her green iguana. As you do! He is called Wizard and is getting feisty. However apart from his sharp claws he is very friendly and I am allowed to stroke him.
I will miss California! Another one for the Doolittle collection I suppose.

I have been staying in this motel chain for the last 10 days. I have been treating myself to it because I know I will be roughing it through large parts of Mexico. It is very reasonably priced at $50 for a room, and they even provide free coffee each morning.

I get to park my car right outside the room I am staying in which makes loading and unloading really easy and all the staff are really friendly. I would definitely recommend this chain to anybody coming to stay in California.

They appear to have outlets all down the coast, and the rooms are comfortable coming with cable TV, which has allowed somebody as square eyed as me the chance to get a double dose of staring at the idiot lantern.

There are laundry facilities onsite, but I have taken the opportunity to properly wash my wetsuit and allow it to dry. I am not using it for a couple of days and it has served me well so far, so a little TLC is well deserved.

There are a few minor repairs that are needed too, but I can sort them out in no time with my needle and thread.

I think the Mexican cleaner must have thought there was somebody hiding in the bathroom though. She got quite a fright when she went into the bathroom his morning!

The Beach Boys sang the following in 1963, which were definite targets for me:

If everybody had an ocean
Across the U.S.A.
Then everybody’d be surfing
Like Californ-I-A – check
You’d see ’em wearin’ their baggies
Huarachi sandals, too
A bushy bushy blonde hairdo
Surfing U.S.A.

You’d catch ’em surfin at Del Mar (Inside, outside, U.S.A.) – check
Ventura County line – check
Santa Cruz and Trestles,  – check and check
Australia’s Narrabeen, – has proved difficult whilst in the US
All over Manhattan, – check
And down Doheny way – checked but it was flat

Everybody’s gone surfing
Surfing U.S.A.

We’ll all be plannin’ out a route
We’re gonna take real soon
We’re waxin’ down our surfboards
We can’t wait for June
We’ll all be gone for the summer
Were on safari to stay
Tell the teacher we’re surfing
Surfing U.S.A.

At Haggerty’s and Swami’s – The only one I passed on and check
Pacific Palisades – Sunset Boulevard check
San Onofre and Sunset – check and check
Redondo Beach, L.A. – checked but was flat
All over La Jolla – check
At Waimea Bay – check

Everybody’s gone surfing
Surfing U.S.A.

Everybody’s gone surfing
Surfing U.S.A.

Yeah, everybody’s gone surfing
Surfing U.S.A.

I have also bagged Malibu, Huntington and Rincon from ‘Surfing Safari’ for good measure on my own trip from Hawaii to the shores of Peru.

😀