There's so much I can say about Baja California, but I think it'd take so long to fully process my experience and put it into words. I keep up this little page for fun, and it certainly ain’t payin the bills.
Let's just say that spending the week surfing in Baja was everything I had hoped for—dreamed of even—and the surfing bug has bit me hard. In fact, I'm finding myself scheming the transition from the dry mountains of Utah to the busy, jam-packed, overpopulated, and polluted Pacific coast.
But those are just some of the qualities you find in southern California. In Baja, on the other hand, you might find lonely breaks (and there are many)* with nary a soul save for some dolphins, pelicans, and a humpback whale. Sure, you'll find pollution and people, but most of them don't surf—at least in the rural coastal villages that harbor beautiful surf. Those people either fish, work in town, or farm. They're kind, and they smiled at us when our Spanish was bad and waved at us whenever we passed by them on one of Baja's many dubious dirt roads.
Luckily so much was happening during my trip that I felt like I needed to write it all down every day in my flimsy little soft-spine journal. I took some photos too. I suppose I'll throw it all up on here to commemorate my first surfing trip to Baja. Surely there will be many more (and hopefully with good homies like Travis and Evan).
*After some consideration I've decided to withhold the names of most of the spots we surfed. They're just too good. But with a little bit of research and map-reading skills, you can probably figure it out.
Days 1 & 2: California, USA and Ejido Erendira, Baja, MX
"Arrived in LA before noon. Travis picked me up all grins and we hit traffic the second we pulled away from the curb.
LA was somehow both grey and sunny, and unexciting. We met up with Billy in a Rite Aid parking lot where he handed me off his 4/3 wetsuit and a beautiful yellow quad-fin fish, maybe about 5'4". We said we'd see him the following weekend, and he warned us that coming back into the states will take a long, long time due to border crossing bullshit. Noted.
We hit San Clemente, which on a Sunday felt appropriately busy, which is to say not really busy at all except for the cars on the main drags and the shops with their doors open wide to the street and the fair Pacific coastal summer air.
I really had to piss. I went into a CVS and of course their bathroom was broken so they told me to use the cafe's across the street. I ran across the street fully expecting the cafe's bathroom to be broken too, but the woman working there sensed desperation in my voice and gracefully gave me the code. I've learned that it's really hard to go to the bathroom in California even when you're buying something.
Quickly we were out of Orange County and in San Diego County, where there's big expensive stucco homes draping over the dry canyons that spill empty below the highways and into the ocean. Apparently there's a lot of dry canyons in San Diego, and some conservation organization is trying to protect them. Knowing how populated California is makes that seem like a tremendous challenge. Affordable housing or conservation lands? Tough call.
Pretty soon we were driving through brushy, empty hillsides that were apparently under military jurisdiction. We passed San Onofre, one of southern California's finest longboarding waves. I couldn't stop thinking about surfing.
This part of southern California felt conservative and quintessentially American. Here we were on the great coast of the greatest ocean in the greatest country in the world, and all we have to show for that is private property and military defense.
We eventually arrived at our destination for the night, Solano Beach, which according to Travis meant that everyone who lives here must be related to Jeff Bezos in some way. It was nice, there were more big stucco ranchettes with manicured front lawns and xeriscaped yards sloping into the dry canyons. The nicest houses were on the canyon rims while the highways and strip malls sat in the wooded, dreamy canyon bottoms.
At one of those nice canyon rim homes we were greeted by Evan and James. James seemed to be an encyclopedia for all things Baja [we later learned that his dad had been surfing in Baja for over 35 years]. He was over the moon to fill our ears with sage advice, and he provided us with so much gear and information that I don't know how we'll ever repay him. Plus, he gave us couches and floors to sleep on.
We hung around for the evening, dug Encinitas, talked Baja, and James gave us some final remarks about dealing with policia municipales and re-entering the country (go to the 'ready lane'!!!). All of this information made trip logistics feel daunting, but none of it seemed real and soon enough I was fast asleep on a pullout couch in a home office, dreaming of nothing and waking up on my back, pleased with how rested I felt.
We had a nice breakfast of eggs, cheese, and spinach and packed the car. Leaving for a trip like this always takes longer than I anticipate. Things don't fit inside the car quite the way you want, and everyone's gotta attend to their pre-trip tasks, errands, etc.
It was cool and foggy outside and the air smelled like hydrangea. We grabbed some solar-res from a surf shop, I grabbed a bean from an industrial-feeling coffeeshop that played jazz music, and we were finally Mexico-bound at 10:15 AM.
The rest of San Diego more or less blended together and reaching the border was quick and almost too easy. You're on the US interstate and suddenly the residential areas disappear, the border wall appears, and there it is, perched up on scrubby, eroded hills, every inch a slum overlooking the turdy Tijuana River: Mexico. Once you cross into Mexico, there's a handful of official-looking people bumbling around, hardly interested in the Gringos speeding gleefully and scared into their poorer, more exciting country.
We were told to avoid driving through Tijuana at all costs so we took the scenic road south instead. We still got a taste of Tijuana as we drove north along the graffitied shanties, watching grave Mexicans—some with mattress frames straddled across their backs—run across the busy highway.
The shift from the states to Mexico was jarring. It was still foggy, gloomy, and there lingered a general feeling of unease. This feeling continued all the way down the coast through Ensenada, punctuated only by the gorgeous viewpoint overlooking Salsipuedes, the greatest wave in Baja Norte [that's supposedly closed off due to privatization].
Ensanada was busy and had a distinctly foreign feel—lots of Mexican chain establishments and American chain establishments with different menu items (extra mayo), holes in the wall, and food carts. The wide, potholed road through Ensanada dragged on and contained barely noticeable 'Alto' signs roughly every mile, presumably signifying pedestrian walkways that were too easy to miss.
Travis nearly missed a stoplight denoting a very busy intersection, and we watched in horror as four lanes of Monday afternoon Mexican traffic came barreling in toward us from either direction. With much skill Travis maneuvered his car just in time, but we nearly got t-boned from both directions (cross-boned?). It was a great reminder to not get too comfortable here in Mexico.
Leaving Ensanada we were slightly worried about the military checkpoint, which the guidebook mentioned required a visa to pass. We had no visas, and thankfully the military paid no attention to us as we passed through the checkpoint.
After the checkpoint the fog and gloom cleared and so did our minds and hearts. The foreign hustle and bustle of Ensanada was behind us and ahead was the golden, steep, brushy hills of Valle de Santo Tomas, with its sleepy tiendas and ranchos and bodegas. This was the Baja for which I came and it was splendid.
We continued to wind through the dry hills, leaving the valley and heading back toward the coast. We reached the fishing village of Ejido Erendira. Most of the tiendas were closed but there were people milling about their houses and bashful children looking out at us from windows.
We turned onto the rugged beach access road which would take us to camp for the night: a gringo outpost called Coyote Cal's. When we arrived Cal was very brief with us as he had to meet in the parking lot with two young officers who worked for the municipality of Ensanada. Listening to him speak Spanish to them was very funny. He had the language mechanics and vocabulary of Dale Gribble, with the laidback delivery of a SoCal surfer. But he seemed nice enough and kept a welcoming hostel.
We threw our shit down at the campsite and were greeted by a thirsty doberman pinscher, its tongue lolling about as it loped around camp. It had massive cojones but was very relaxed. If this was what you'd call a third-world dog, he sure was a friendly one. We named him Chupito and he followed us up our short walk to the top of a dirt hill that overlooked the campsite and some potential surf.
After finding little surf directly north of the hostel, we decided to get in the car and drive and scope.
The road we took ended at an idyllic cove which had surf. Long, frown-shaped crumbly beach break, but glassy and with a sandy beach entrance. It was empty, and the parking lot was guarded by a squatter, who lived in what looked like a converted airplane hangar replete with a watchtower. Later I would speak bad Spanish to the man, who told me he worked on boats and that there were "olas mejores" just further north.
We eventually paddled in, and wow, the water was in fact very cold. I knew it would feel pleasantly coastal, but the chill in the air and the water took me by surprise. We enjoyed surfing the empty cove, scoring chest-high crumble that came in sets of three or four. I surfed Travis' 9 footer and had a blast. Plus, my shoulder was feeling strong and I had plenty good rides—partly because I went for every ripple that put me in a good position. Normally, I'm stressing a bit about managing the crowd and other people. But the only other people out there with me were Travis and Evan, who didn't care how well I surfed and were happy to share waves.
We headed back to camp, ate a big pasta supper, and quietly retired to our respective dens.
Hard saying how wet the morning fog will make our tents/shelters. Hopefully I can sleep under the stars one of these nights with the sound of the ocean in my ears. I haven't done that since the Florida days...
If this Baja trip is anything like this evening, I'm overjoyed.
JG, 5/23/2022"
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