And into Mexico…

Left Tucson heading to Mexico in late February…

and first stopped at the TSD station for a diesel fill up. And couldn’t get the pump to start pumping! Tried every trick I knew about pump islands with remote pumps on the opposite side but nothing worked. Dammit! I needed fuel! So I drove around the fueling station (these are business type sites…no humans anywhere around) and tried a different pump, and it worked. Cost me nearly 45 minutes of screwing around to find they have defective equipment but no sign. Wasn’t until I was 10 minutes away that I realized I could have put a note on the pump myself. Doh!

Anyway, I did make it out of Tucson onto the west bound I-8 freeway.

One of the dune buggy havens that dot this area. There’s a huge meeting over those dunes a couple times a year. I’ve passed it in the past but never stopped.

Around 4 hours later I’m near El Centro, CA and stopped in at Country Life RV park and it’s booked solid! Dammit. I’ve stayed in the past and they had reasonable rates back then.

After searching for some place to spend the night in comfort, I had to settle at Rio Bend RV park. No discounts of any kind…no elderly, no veteran, no Passport America, nothing. I paid $65 freakin’ bucks for one night. The last time I stayed here around 5 years ago, they were taking the Passport America card, this time no discounts at all except Good Sam and I don’t have that card. Grrr.

But, I must say something nice about the place or you’d wonder why I bothered to stay here…they do have low monthly if you stay for 3 or more months, have an onsite bar (that closes at 9pm), a golf course, a kitchen (but they lead a prayer before meals…gag me). I stayed here a month back 5 years ago and enjoyed my stay quite a bit. Used my PPA card for a few days, then switched to monthly.

It was around 5 pm when I got settled, got dark pretty quickly, and the next morning, the private lake looked like this.

Anyway, next morning, was soon on the highway due west heading for Tecate…which is where I planned on crossing the border this trip. While heading due west, spotted this solar farm alongside the freeway. They are getting bigger and bigger.

Soon left the freeway heading south on CA-94 than CA-188. It’s a leisurely drive and I planned it that way because you never know how much time you might need to cross the border. I’ve never traveled this way before so bare with me as I post pictures of the route. It’s 2-lane all the way, and often curvy with some hills, but easy enough for a Class A RV towing a car.

Found this rail yard alongside the road. Probably unused these days but I couldn’t really tell.   

I’ve never crossed at Tecate before so I was a bit anxious about it. I’d used google maps to street level view the crossing and couldn’t find any easy parking areas near the border where I could park, cross over, get my required FMM, cross back north, then drive across. Decided instead to just drive over in the RV and ask the border guards where to park on the Mexican side. And sure enough, they had a method, and nearby parking too. But first they inspected my RV and car. Came inside and opened a few cabinets, ignored the cat, then inspected the car, and during the car’s inspection the border guards found a pair of struts in the trunk that I’d forgotten about, brand new, so they charged me $1000p ($57USD) import. I’ve since hidden them in one of my RVs basement compartments. John had given them to me, free, as he’d sold the vehicle they went to. They don’t fit my car (or RV) but might fit my son’s truck.

After the inspection and having to walk over to an office to pay the import, they had me drive straight for a block to the first right turn, drive another block and take a right at the kindergarten school building, then right again just passed the playground, then park alongside the FMM building. There is both a guide guy and some orange cones blocking regular people wanting to park where a big RV should go. The guide guy removed them so I could park there. Only room for one Class A, though an RV’ers van parked behind me. So basically did a giant loop and parked where I’d be out of the way of the crossing.

Took 30 minutes to get my FMM as the officials were rather slow that day. I wasn’t in a hurry so no matter.

Anyway, I did make it across and hit a post making a turn somewhere too. So now I have damage to the rear of my RV and the rear of my car as they both scrapped along whatever it was I hit. I didn’t notice and just drove on.

Passed through town without incident except for making a wrong turn so I had to loop around on narrow streets but soon was on MX-3 heading towards Ensenada. I’d done research and decided that after a day of driving, I’d stop in Valle de Guadalupe instead of heading into the big city of Ensenada. I’ve found it difficult to figure out which RV park is worth staying at. They all seem to have major issues.

The Guadalupe RV Park lies 15 miles NE of Ensenada and the RV park looked like it would be okay for a few days so I set my GPS to the coordinates I’d gotten off of google map and it lead me right to the driveway, which is conveniently right on a 4-lane portion of MX-3. It’s only $20/nite, $100/week or $250/month. That’s USD. But…there’s no Wifi.

And I was all set up within a few minutes. The sign on the building says to find a place and they’ll be by to collect later. Each site has a phonied up 50 amp outlet (only has a line 1, but they wire it to both terminals…the power center inside my RV notices that and sets things for 30 amp), clean water, and ample room. The park has a dump site, though there are several back in sites that have W/E/Sewer for $350/month.

Those hovels on the hillside across the road are some sort of Eco tourist traps. They are just a tiny room, with power and wifi (I can read their APs clear down here), and are around $200 USD per NIGHT. Yep, you read that right. They’re called ‘Lofts’ and I don’t see the point.

I thought these park models were rentals but it turns out one guy owns them both but he’s going through a divorce and they are currently vacant but not for rent.

Here’s a few of those back in sites. Nicely shaded too. I’m thinking of moving over there.

I went into the small village a couple miles from here and on the way back, took this shot of the view from the road. This is wine country. And olive country.

One thing about Wifi…or lack thereof. I really need it so I signed up for the Visible+ roaming plan. And of course it doesn’t work like their ads suggest. It’s 0.5GB per day, with the speed throttled back, well here, you read it:

“Unlimited Talk, Text & Data Roaming in Mexico and Canada

Talk, text and use unlimited data when traveling in Mexico and Canada, plus the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Data speeds are reduced to 2G after 0.5GB/day. Roaming capabilities are not yet enabled on certain devices, see the Visible Help Center for the latest information.”

I do not think they know what ‘unlimited’ means. When they throttle back, the data speeds are so slow as to be unusable.  Their 2G is equivalent to 0.048 Mbps which is nothing these days. And when I test it, it’s never gotten above 0.024 Mbps. Trying to get by that restriction, I also bought a data plan from here in Mexico through Telcel and installed the SIM in my backup phone. I purchased it at a Telcel satellite store inside a Soriana big box store. Had the Telcel gurl install the SIM, she messed with it for a few, pronounced it good. When I got home, it didn’t connect to the network. She didn’t install it right, or just faked it. Fuk. Tried to get it working at an Oxxo store but they couldn’t so decided to drive downtown Ensenada (23 miles one way!) to the main Telcel store, they worked on it and I think it’s working now. I do have a little data from the plan but not much. The Telcel people recommended I use Wifi to save on data…grr.

And that’s all for today. I’ll be back soon with more adventures from here and down in Ensenada.

Thanks for reading.