January 18th, 2009
Well, today was the big day. We finally crossed the border! What a nerve-wracking experience that was. I’m not sure which was more scary: the not knowing where we were going or the potholes that—not unlike black holes in the universe—ought to be named since these could definitely swallow you up and never let you be seen again.
You’d think we’d know where we were going, given the long wait to cross the border… wrong. We took the less popular crossing, so there literally was NO wait. So much for my “I’ll be prepared to navigate us once we cross” plan, but in my defense, I didn’t know we were taking an alternate route until we were in the nonexistent line. And by that point, our attention became immediately focused on the border guy—a kid actually—who knew no English (and we no real Spanish of course) who wanted to see the title for our motorcycle. We were prepared with ALMOST all of the paperwork required of us. But, after a bit of scrambling around, I found it and handed it over. I felt like so many non-English speakers are treated in the U.S., like “what are you doing here if you can’t speak the language?!” And we weren’t even across the damn border yet!! So, border kid asked if any of his co-workers spoke English—and fortunately one guy did. I found this rather odd having spent the last several days in the area south of San Diego (mile marker 3)right near the border where everyone, I mean everyone, was either speaking Spanish, or was clearly bi-lingual. How is it that the clerks at Wal-Mart all spoke both English and Spanish but the border guys nada?
Do I sound defensive? Just nervous actually. I felt helpless once we crossed and there were NO road signs, and the ones we could read were of little use because they were in Spanish (duh!). That wasn’t really the problem. The problem was we had no map. We had crossed where our travel books provided very little info, and we were definitely entering into a part of Tijuana that if my dad had been driving would have hollered to us kids “lock ‘em up!” Tony was beside himself and I could offer little comfort or guidance as to how to get us outa there!
So, we stumbled around from here to there and eventually saw a sign for I-5 and San Diego. It was REALLY tempting to say let’s go back! But, nope, we stuck to our “plan” and followed that sign so that when we got to where the most popular border crossing was (just off I-5) I could use the directions I was prepared to utilize earlier. Whew! We were now on our way out of the scary border town SO many had cautioned us against spending ANY time in whatsoever. I cannot begin to tell you how VERY, VERY grateful I am that the tires, and suspension, and the list is long…on our ol’ RV withstood the beating we gave it today. We stroked the dashboard and apologized to our Roz many times, thanking her for keeping us from being broken down. We also stroked the “buddha belly” of our new addition to the RV, “Lani-boy.”
In this lovely little beach town, Encinatas, just north of San Diego, we hung out for a day or two (days/time are definitely beginning to blur three weeks? into our travels). There we stopped into the local Thrift store where Tony picked up a steal of a deal on a rash guard/wet suit for surfing. Can’t wait to see my baby surf! While he was trying them on I stuck my nose in on this lovely gentleman’s consideration of a brown with floral print comforter. He had asked the elder woman behind the counter to help him unfold and estimate its size. Count me in! I meandered over and as they were debating whether or not is was a queen, I said, I think it’s a full. I mentioned that I have a full-sized bed and it looks about that size. I proceeded to say that it would probably fit a queen but that not much would hang over. Then, before I knew it, out it popped, “But who needs a hung over queen?!” The seemingly gay man (read stereotypically effeminate and just the kind of person I’m interesting in chatting with!)who was looking to purchase the item busted a gut and offered me the high five! The woman working the counter joined in the laughter and said wait ‘til I tell so and so. You gotta love human connections. Anyway, I do digress. So, once we left the Thrift store, we saw said man with comforter in tow just ahead of us in the alley. I told Tony the story and we all made introductions. We asked where some good places to eat were, and besides the Thai restaurant that perpetually calls our names, we opted for Kealani’s, a little Hawaiian spot. This is where we had dinner and picked up our little Hawaiian Hula man we nicknamed “Lani-boy” after the restaurant and Tony’s cousin. He wiggled all the way down the Mexican highways on the dashboard, playing his ukulele perched high above his buddha belly.
We are now just outside Ensanada, the town where we thought we could pick up our tourist visas, but learned that we were supposed to do that at the border now as well. We arrived at the migracion office about less than a half-hour before closing time to find this out. I had a suspicion that there may be difficulty since I found a paragraph in our more recently updated book that stated Ensanada was no longer the place to go for visas. Shit! Well, one and a half hours south of the border and NO WAY IN HELL were we turning around and reliving THAT experience anytime soon ( a lot like childbirth I imagine!), we went to the Migracion office just to get more dirty looks at our stupida Americana ways! He rushed our paperwork while sending Tony running down the street 3 blocks to try and get into the bank (which also closed at 2pm)to pay the fine for not having stopped at the border. He had no luck; however, the man was nice enough to give us our visas without paying the fine, warning us that we had better come back Monday with it paid. We promised we would and then high-tailed it out of there, only to sit in front of the now-closed office trying to figure out where to next. It’s Saturday evening and the bank is closed tomorrow, so, it looks like we’ll stay right around here for a couple of days to avoid getting on the Mexican government’s poop list! We drove just a smidge outside of town to our pick of parking spaces directly in front of the Pacific Ocean. As I sit here typing up this entry, I am blessed with the sound of the ocean’s endless waves coming ashore. Tony cooked us a lovely dinner outside over a fire as we watched the sun set and youth playing in the surf. A bit nippy for my middle aged body I believe… but, the plan is to head further down the Baja where the water is warmer and the whales are waiting to commune with us! It’s hard to keep moving given how stressful it can be at times. My guess is we’ll look to boondock somewhere not too far from this town (since we saw Internet access signs) and kick back and truly relax until the end of the month. We’ll see… meanwhile, it is time to snuggle up next to my honey and thank him again for doing so much to make this trip possible. I am a lucky woman indeed.
