February 27 The Loooonnnngggg Road to Ensenada

This was our longest, most difficult driving day of the trip. We traveled more than our share of narrow, windy, mountain roads plus covering 227 miles in the day.

After all these miles, Gary and I have finally developed a system which will demonstrate to you the stress of driving in Mexico. The highways are very narrow, with NO shoulder. If you are lucky there is a “fog line” at the right. I watch out in the distance as far as I can see for any oncoming traffic. When I see something, I call it out. Oncoming car…oncoming semi…oncoming motor home.

Then while Gary tries to maintain an appropriate spacing in the center of the road…I watch in the side mirror down at the fog line. I tell him: we are inside it, we are close to it, we are on it, we are outside it (running risk of dropping off pavement!) From that he will adjust our placement and hopefully miss having the oncoming vehicle “clip” us. A couple of our caravan motor homes have lost mirrors and been sideswiped on this trip. Some have dropped off the side pavement and run into curbs and signs causing damage. The tension remains high. Some just come to a full standstill when a large vehicle is oncoming. Also you have to be aware that the gust of air from the passing vehicle can throw you off the pavement as well.

The other big hazard is TOPES. These are very large speed bumps and the Mexicans use them to slow you down when you enter and exit the towns. They are often a series of bumps getting larger and larger jarring you to a stop. Sometimes they are painted yellow but more often the paint has worn off. You see very little traffic police enforcement…topes are their ways of “punishing” you if you speed, and they are very effective.

Factor that all in plus frequent military inspection stations and slow downs in small towns and you know why we AVERAGE 40 miles an hour and why a day like today 227 miles is a 5 to 6 hour day.

We were all thoroughly exhausted when we arrived in Ensenada but glad to be here and arrive at a very fancy waterfront resort location with full service hookups.