{"id":27,"date":"2008-07-31T21:15:14","date_gmt":"2008-08-01T05:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/personalblog\/?p=27"},"modified":"2019-09-05T16:02:53","modified_gmt":"2019-09-06T00:02:53","slug":"viva-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/personalblog\/viva-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Viva Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After going jet skiing at Mission Bay again yesterday, I had a fun time driving an ATV around on the beach today. &#8220;But in San Diego that&#8217;s not allowed, is it?&#8221; you ask. True, but let me start at the beginning. A friend and I took a bus trip to Mexico today. We went down the west coast of Baja California on the scenic highway 1 and stopped in three towns just south of San Diego, Rosarito, Ensenada, and Tijuana (where I had been before maybe about a year ago).<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Rosarito Archway\" alt=\"Rosarito Archway\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/pictures\/mexico_jul2008\/1.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Our first stop was Rosarito, a small touristy town just south of Tijuana. It&#8217;s really only famous for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rosaritobeachhotel.com\/\">Rosarito Beach Hotel<\/a> there and apart from a nice pier there&#8217;s not much to see.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Flowers at Rosarito Beach Hotel\" alt=\"Flowers at Rosarito Beach Hotel\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/pictures\/mexico_jul2008\/2.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Rosarito Pier\" alt=\"Rosarito Pier\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/pictures\/mexico_jul2008\/3.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Another maybe 45 minutes further south we arrived at Ensenada, a port town where some cruise ships from San Diego stop over sometimes.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Ensenada\" alt=\"Ensenada\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/pictures\/mexico_jul2008\/4.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Ensenada kind of reminded me of Tijuana in some ways. It had a main shopping street bustling with activity and people trying to get you to buy their stuff or eat at their restaurant. A few blocks away from that street you can find a much quieter atmosphere where the &#8220;normal&#8221; people live.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of the more interesting things I found on the shopping street, such as horse shit. Also available are the new flavors donkey shit or bull shit or real shit. In case you were wondering, those are packs of cigarettes \ud83d\ude09<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Horse Shit for Sale in Ensenada\" alt=\"Horse Shit for Sale in Ensenada\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/pictures\/mexico_jul2008\/5.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Or how about you buy some superviagra? It&#8217;s only 5 dollars. I&#8217;m not kidding. Just like in TJ, there are a lot of pharmacies in Ensenada that sell prescription drugs for a lot, and I mean a lot, less than in the US. Of course, they only sell generic drugs, but in the end it&#8217;s the same stuff.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Viagra Ad in Ensenada\" alt=\"Viagra Ad in Ensenada\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/pictures\/mexico_jul2008\/6.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>In the center of Ensenada they have this huge Mexican flag. According to our bus driver it&#8217;s the largest of its kind in all of Mexico with a width of 50 meters. Pretty impressive.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Huge Mexican Flag\" alt=\"Huge Mexican Flag\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/pictures\/mexico_jul2008\/7.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>The funnest part of the trip was definitely our hour out on the beach with ATVs or quad bikes. After getting used to the vehicle, we started doing jumps, swerves, circles, or we just tried to go as fast as we could on the beach. It was good fun and the beach they have there is perfect for ATVs. There&#8217;s a race track behind the beach, then some sand dunes with some premade tracks for ATVs with lots of bumps, and the pretty flat beach itself where you can really rev up the engine. The best part was the price. It was only $30 for an hour.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"ATVs\" alt=\"ATVs\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/pictures\/mexico_jul2008\/8.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Our final stop on the way back was Tijuana. Just like the last time I had been here, I didn&#8217;t really like it that much. It&#8217;s a noisy and dirty place where they paint donkeys with the colors of zebras, put them in front of a stupid looking backdrop, make tourists wear a sombrero and charge them for the picture they take together with donkey, backdrop and stupid tourist. The only interesting thing they had this time was a beer festival at the beginning of Avenida Revolucion, the main shopping street of Tijuana.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Tijuana Avenida Revolucion\" alt=\"Tijuana Avenida Revolucion\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/pictures\/mexico_jul2008\/9.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>All in all, an awesome day in Mexico. I&#8217;ll have to check how expensive the ATVs are over here in the states and maybe rent one for going out into the desert some time \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After going jet skiing at Mission Bay again yesterday, I had a fun time driving an ATV around on the beach today. &#8220;But in San Diego that&#8217;s not allowed, is it?&#8221; you ask. True, but let me start at the beginning. A friend and I took a bus trip to Mexico today. We went down [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.12 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Viva Mexico - An Austrian Perspective on Sunny California<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/personalblog\/viva-mexico\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Viva Mexico - An Austrian Perspective on Sunny California\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After going jet skiing at Mission Bay again yesterday, I had a fun time driving an ATV around on the beach today. &#8220;But in San Diego that&#8217;s not allowed, is it?&#8221; you ask. 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I'm originally from Austria\/Europe. I love playing the guitar, listening to music, going to the movies, swimming and hiking, and traveling of all sorts.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Viva Mexico - An Austrian Perspective on Sunny California","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/www.martinecker.com\/personalblog\/viva-mexico\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Viva Mexico - An Austrian Perspective on Sunny California","og_description":"After going jet skiing at Mission Bay again yesterday, I had a fun time driving an ATV around on the beach today. &#8220;But in San Diego that&#8217;s not allowed, is it?&#8221; you ask. True, but let me start at the beginning. A friend and I took a bus trip to Mexico today. 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