We’re now safely in our third night in Baja, after a failed attempt to treat ourselves to a night at the Baja Cactus, this awesome hotel in El Rosario that a trucker once told us about.
We spent Night 2 with Meejin and Victor, some friends from New York who now live in Pasadena underneath an enormous, ancient oak tree. They’re really into photography, too.
Then, after a death march in the heat (Juan was like “Is this what happens when New Yorkers move to LA?”) we made our way down to Tijuana, where we spent the night at Juan’s friend’s place, where this next-door-neighbor served as the cornerstone of the neighborhood watch.
We also got to meet up with Jason Fritz, an old journalism buddy of mine whom I haven’t seen since our hard-drinking SFSU days. Fritz randomly showed up in an Anthony Bourdain show in Tijuana recently so we met up for drinks. He runs the beautiful photo-essay blog Tijuanalandia, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in photography, urban planning, Tijuana, and Mexico. I’ve driven through Tijuana twice before but never set foot in the town, so it was nice to hang out there and see/hear first-hand that it’s not the Land O’Death that it was once rumoured to be.
We coincidentally entered Mexico on Independence Day, as well as a major boxing match (the Argentine won). We watched the boxing match in the bars and in the streets, peering into the bars, and watched the DIY parade cars go by. We were even treated to a few scattered fireworks.
Our second night in Baja we camped in Ejido Eridria, beyond Coyote Cal’s hostel. The coast there is tragically littered, but it’s still beautiful, even ensconced in fog. There, we also met a dog so heart-breakingly sweet that we called him ‘Segundo’ for the night and considered adopting him. But that would have been cray-cray.
But now, after such wonderful hospitality from our friends, we are on our own for a while, just the three of us. I would be sad but I can’t wait to get to the beach–as in, the sunny, warm, beach. You know what I mean, San Francisco.
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