Yeah! I've got visitors!! In San Diego

My friend Ross and his son are coming to visit me for a couple days, we are going to play tourist in San Diego.

Since my truck broke I'll be using buses and trains to get where I need to be, I'm excited! I want to be the type of person that can find their way in a city or country and this challenge is exactly what I like.

The journey Sunday

10 peso bus to Ensenada, walk to ABC bus station (close), take a ABC bus to Tijuana border bus station, walk across the border, get on the San Diego MTS train system, take the Blue line from the border (San Ysidro) to 12th and Imperial, get on the Orange line to El Cajon.

Easy!

I'll take lots of pictures and post later.

I love my old truck. A little less today (Saturday)

Getting ready for going to San Diego Sunday I checked the fluids on my truck, oil, half a quart low..  Look under and see I've got a leak.  I jack it up, get under there and see that one of my oil cooler lines is leaking again. I start the truck and poke around under there and can see that the the line is easy to move (loose), I push it one way to see how loose and it showers me we oil and dumps a few quarts on the ground before I get it turned off. Clearly the o-ring seal is broken, again.

I'm very sick of this problem, this is the third time this system has leaked.

I spent hours researching this problem, after I did a massive cleanup of me and the ground. I'm going to take care of it myself instead of paying some mechanic to half ass it.

My research helped me throughly understand how this stupid thing works and why it's a common fail in 90s and newer era GM engines. Lots of options and most likely I'll just bypass it for now by capping these hoses and look at some aftermarket, better, options.

Forum overload, but I think I know what I'm going to do after my trip to San Diego.

I got cleaned up just in time to watch the sunset, so, not completely a bad day.

Walmart

I went into Encenada today to check out the Home Depot and take some shoes back to Walmart.

I bought some OP loafers a couple weeks ago, got home took them out of the box, one was size 11 (what I wanted) the other was size 9, both were for the right foot.

I took them to the customer support area, the lady didn't speak English (why would she, I'm the foreigner) took a minute, but she finally got what I was saying and refunded me.

I roamed around and took some pictures of a Mexican Walmart.

Clamato, tomato juice and clam broth, I like it. To me, clamato is a very savory drink, it has a lot of spices in it, apparently Mexicans love it.

This is just the seafood part of the meat counter, if your looking at this on a phone you will miss how much seafood is there, I thought it was impressive.

Chicken broth

Mexicans must eat a lot of it, this was a whole section of an isle of it.

Fud..  Really!

Then I stopped by the motorcycle department..

I like this brown one, $16000 pesos, about $1066, seems like a good deal, it's a 125 cc, probably gets 70 mpg, right up until someone runs over you on these streets, or you disappear in a pothole never to be seen again.

 

Hell yeah I'll have wings!

You can call me any time now

Tmobile offered a new service today (Wednesday) allowing me to call and be called for no charge in Mexico, I added this $10 service to my account today, so call any time.

This blog is public, so I'm not putting my number in it, this is targeted at friends and family,  reply if you need my number.

I got my awning fixed and cleaned today, let there be shade!

Exploring Tijuana

Instead of going to Comic-Con in San Diego I went to Tijuana for the day.

The whole day total was 1110 pesos $74, a lot cheaper than Comic-Con, and I got in a lot of exercise walking. Bus and taxi fees were most of the cost.

 

I have a lot of mixed emotions about Tijuana, but overall it felt like a much bigger, dirtier version of Ensenada. There were gigantic "suburb" like housing areas, and interspersed everywhere was horrible poverty, squalor, trash, and people who are clearly just surviving.

As the bus drove through the city there were more affluent areas, but the percentage of nice to run down shacks was low.

I went to Zona Norte, the red light district of Tijuana. I was there just to check the place out on this trip, I may go back for an overnight visit. Zona Norte seems like every other part of Mexico I've seen so far, doing everything humanly possible to remove dollars from tourist wallets, oh yeah, and hookers.

I didn't take any pictures of the hookers, but someone else filmed the same streets I was walking, this is exactly what I saw yesterday afternoon.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mpfO_QSB5BA

I expected Tijuana to be different, but to me, it's the same thing I see all over this area, just WAY more city.

Just my opinion of yesterdays very limited bus trip, and being someone who has never left the U.S. before. 

To be honest, Tijuana made me deeply sad.

Ensenada Bus Terminal 

Bus stations, they suck everywhere 

The areas around Zona Norte

That is the giant flag that is near the border crossing, at least I think it is, some guy told that to me as I was standing there looking at it.

2 for 1 Margaritas, tacos, 80 pesos $5.33 

30 minutes later I was shitting my brains out, only for a couple minutes, then felt fine. The food all tasted good, not sure what set me off, I regret nothing.

Hotels everywhere, by the hour or longer

This is a very popular thing here, painted donkeys you can sit on and get a picture.

This was the third one I saw. I think they are painted, I did't look that close.

It seems every other street looks like this

I thought these prices were interesting for a little walk in pharmacy.

I haven't translated this one, but you get the idea. 150 pesos is $10

After all the Zona Norte craziness, I went to a church, a beautiful place, it doesn't make me believe in "gods", but I appreciate what people do in their name.

On the trip back to Ensenada

The erosion on this hill was almost like art

Lots of construction of these beach front condos, not sure who is going to buy them, some looked like they have been half built for a long time.

I need a better camera..

That's a fishing boat and way out there is a cruise ship heading back to California 

Dinner back in Ensenada, I haven't had any fast food since I left California.

A Whopper Combo, frys, small drink, 68 pesos $4.53

It was the same as the U.S. version, home of the Whopper

Walking around Ensenada

Yesterday I took the 10 peso bus into Ensenada, figured out where the bus stations were then walked around for several hours.

The ABC bus terminal, soon I'm going to take one of these and check out Tijuana, about $19 dollars for the 100km trip.

I love seeing the bugs everywhere here, if I end up here, I'm going to have a beetle or a bus.

Lunch, 120 pesos, $8 dlls.  Fish Ceviche, very tasty.

I picked up a few Viagra for my trip to Tijuana, $8 a piece, or $4 for the generic Viagra Sildenafil Citrate, I'll let you know if they work.

The power grid looks a little rough..

Part of the Baja 1000 route

A 20 peso, $1.33 dlls fruit smoothie to end the trip.