Since I’m staying near to the village of Guadalupe, a picture essay of the town and nearby environs is warranted, so here ya are…
If you click on that map link above, you can see how small it is. The main MX-3 highway is how I’d get to Ensenada. If I went straight instead of following the curve, I would be where this first picture shows. Note this is very typical of the smaller Mexican towns I’ve stayed at over the last 20 years. This is my first visit to the west coast of Baja and I sort of expected less green, thinking it was mostly desert. It was a surprise to find all this vegetation, vineyards, olive orchards, etc. Pleasant surprise really.
Here’s the first corner entering the village. Over on the left are 3 small food kiosks. The Pemex parking lot is like many in these small towns off of the main highway MX-3, filled with small and huge potholes. I was considering filling up my RV here when I moved again but the nasty potholes kind of squelched that idea for the time being. I did explore their access to the diesel pumps a couple times but decided because of the potholes to fuel up back in the US since I had just under 1/2 tank left.
Here’s just a bit further up the road, a mix of homes and small one room businesses…on either side. This main road had it’s share of potholes too but doesn’t take long to figure out how to navigate the area. Did all my shopping at the Oxxo, the Liz store, and a couple other stores. One was a Costco type store with bulk items in stock, another was a basement convenience store alongside the road. Past this area is the main part of town with lots of businesses. There are a couple of mini-malls too.
Here’s the main road looking east towards the older part of town I guess, or maybe this is the older part? There’s a mini-mall right next to the Liz store where I did some shopping too.
And one day, Walter invited me along on a tour and as we returned from an actual Costco down in Ensenada, we took a detour off the main highway onto a back road that parallels it into the wine & olive farm areas heading for Guadalupe. Note that the hills are covered with growth. Not like the east side of the Baja where they are all just dirt with little in the way of green other then cactus and low to the ground trees and hardy bushes. These are alive with plant growth.
And we stopped at a wine bar for a couple samples of local wines. Nice tended driveway with a gardener it appears.
It was closed so we just turned around in the parking lot and headed on, but it was picturesque nearby so I got a few shots of some horses as we pulled out of their driveway…first horses I’d seen this trip.
Sooooo many grapes, and olives.
Later we stopped at this out of the way restaurant for an afternoon snack. I was so turned around by that point, lost my bearings, that I can’t tell you where it is really. Just a few miles west of Guadalupe is all I know, off the main road and on a dirt road that had a huge puddle we had to skirt.
Friendly el gato.
We were the only customers at that time. The food was excellent, and the coffee, very good.
More vineyards nearby.
Not all the countryside roads are bad though.
I am really fascinated by the geology of this area with the huge boulders everywhere. I will have to find a geology group on FB and find out about them.
And since it turned into late afternoon, we stopped at a brew pub just off the main road in Guadalupe; Cerveceria Bellinghausen. The IPA brew wasn’t all that good, but the atmosphere is pleasant. They serve bar food too. You can find it on that posted map above. I did want to come back again.
Prices are in pesos. A 16oz beer is $6.25 USD so even out here in the boondocks of Mexico, they are nearly charging city prices. In Tucson, they average $7 USD for an IPA.
Right next to the brew house was this giant boulder. See what I mean about the geology? I don’t think there were ever glaciers here this far south so where did it come from? Guadalupe is miles from any big hills that it might have rolled off of. Worn down and rounded by water in a river perhaps? 
Got a little closer for this shot. It’s impressively huge. That’s a building off in the distance poking out of the top.
Here’s the local museum, on the same road where the brew pub is. It’s a historical building but I never visited it or the nearby museum.
And a few days later, it was time to have dinner out again. I ordered the fish dinner and it came with this…some goat cheese, and sauteed peppers. Also had a pina colada, and of course no Mexican meal would be without chips and salsa.
Their enchilada soup. A bit too tomato’y for me, but not too bad.
Came with a ho hum salad. They’re so close to the US border here that they’ve gotten away from actually putting veggies on the salad too.
Sampled these 3 wines, chose the Magoni Chardonnay.
And the main course. Baked salmon or some fish of some kind. Not bad at all. Entire meal with the drinks, extra soup I ordered, main course, and the side dishes that came with the meal, cost was $30 + $6 tip, USD.
What’s interesting is the chef is likely a professional, so how could the kitchen serve me moldy tacos along with this dinner?
Dinner was at Valle 13 restaurant again that I’d visited a week or two before. Across from the Liz store. The fish was pretty good. BUT…the meal came with moldy corn tacos that I wouldn’t eat. Showed the waiter and he took them back, but never returned with new, nor did he comp one of my drinks. Grrr.
Note the parking over at the Liz store viewed from in front of the Valle 13. That’s basically it, there are some spaces over on this side too. I was lucky to occasionally find a space in front, usually I’d try to park in the mini-malls space near the Liz (off to the left out of frame). Or across the street over on this side. Sometimes there would be a guy guiding cars into and out of those few parking spaces and that was his income. Change from people he’d help get into or out of the store, stopping traffic to accomplish that. See this all over Mexico. Oh, and the baggers at the check stands. Either high school kids, or retirees, and you’d drop a few coins off for them if they helped bag your groceries. There are big box stores with ample parking in Mexico of course, but not often in villages this small.
That’s the tour of Guadalupe and surrounding area, with a few stops.
Thanks for reading!