Planes, Trains and Automobiles

After my wife and I fled southern Laos, fever-wracked with a mysterious illness, hurling ourselves toward Bangkok on a miserable procession of boats, trucks, songteaus, and trains, to arrive there, broken and desperate, slumped across each other in an emergency room waiting area on the morning of February 14th, I thought that nothing could top Dengue as a travel experience, and that certainly there could not be a worse Valentine's Day.

And. Perhaps I was right on both counts. But at least we were together.

Fast forward to one year later, 2004, Harper and I had been back in the States for nearly a year, but we still counted ourselves travellers. And as we had done before, in an effort to escape San Francisco's winter, we decided to roll down to Baja for Valentine's Day.

Now, let me back up, and presume that you did not read the link up there, or at least not all of it. After spending six months travelling in South East Asia the previous year, we counted ourselves bad-asses. We didn't even bother to get a guidebook for Malaysia, for example, presuming we could just figure it out. And we did. We were (and are) religious about taking public transit. If you want to really see a country, we believe, you should travel in it as the natives do. If you're in South Carolina or South Africa, rent a car. If it's New York or New Dehli, hop aboard a train.

And so. Up came Valentines Day, and we headed down to Ensenada to hang out at the beach. We chose it without looking into it at all. I believe we found our hotel over the Internet (not on a travel site, mind you, but via Mr. Google). All we cared about was a beach, and a bed.

I mean, what is travelling in Mexico? Mexico is college kids on spring break and surfers. And it's Baja, at that. Baja California is to Mexico what California is to the United States. It's chill, man. Don't worry. And besides. I speak Spanish. I mean, poco.

So there we were. On February 13, we flew Southwest down to San Diego, jumped on the city's light rail system and rode it to the border. We walked across, found a bus to Ensenada, and got on.

Goodbye, goodbye, California. Goodbye to your waving trees. To your succulent wind and all my friends. Fare thee well. Goodbye. So be it. Amen.

And down it went. I don't remember, really, anything about the bus trip down. It was uneventful. I have a vague recollection of seeing the ocean.

We got off the bus in Ensenada, grabed our packs, and set off, mapless, for the center of town, of which we had naught but a vague notion where it might be, and reason to believe, though not evidence, that our hotel was located.

We found both.

And checking in, we were surprised that no one was about. It looked like a decent place. Certainly, that is, compared to some of the shitholes we had stayed in before. Some of the shitholes in Baja, even.

Yet upon entering our room, we were assaulted with the smell of cleaning products. Sick, sweet cleaning products. Nauseating and blue. It was horrifying, but not a problem. We didn't plan on being in the room that long, and so we just changed clothes, and sauntered downstairs to find out how to get to the beach.

Oh. It's 20 miles away, you say? Ensenada is a cruise ship destination with a deep water port, is it? I didn't know that. Perhaps if I had looked at a guidebook...

But we didn't worry too much. We strolled around town, instead, hitting Hussong's, the oldest bar in California, eating ceviche, and generally mucking about downtown. We had a fine time.

But when we got back to the room the smell kept both of us from sleeping. It was horrible, demoralizing. Present.

And then in came the whore.

Shortly after midnight we--both awake, high on Lysol--we heard a gentleman come upstairs with a woman. They were quite loud and rowdy. Whe I heard the door shut in the next room, I groaned. And then so did the guy, followed shortly by a women whom I presume to be the world's most vocally-repetitive hooker.

For the next four hours, they fucked in our heads. I felt violated. Dirty. Dirty! He would groan and mutter, as she oh-oh-oh'd for hours on end. Periodically they would both begin speaking rapid Spanish, in an almost call and response-type pattern, and I would hope that it might be about to end. Only for him to settle down into more moaning and muttering, as she oh-oh-oh'd the night away. I kept thinking how we had another several nights of this ahead of us.

And so the next day, as we walked back up the hill towards the bus station after an early checkout, with our loaded backpacks, I wasn't sorry to say goodbye to Ensenada. We caught the first bus that morning, the only gringos aboard. (Again, we had often been in this situation in other contries. No big deal, taking a public bus.) Exhausted, I took a seat in the back, and promptly konked out to the comparatively pleasant aroma of gasoline.

I don't know when Harper woke me up, but it seemed much later. A lifetime later. Nor can I recall exactly what she was saying, but it was someting about fumes.

I responded as I always do, "I'm sure it's fine."

"No," she says, "I don't think it is. Seriously. Just open your eyes for a second and look around."

The bus was very cool, I remember that. It had a thumping air-con system. And my first thought, as I blinked and looked around the bus, was how pleasant it was. Cool and dark. Everyone asleep.

Wait.

Why is it dark?

It was dark, of course, because it was entirely filled with smoke. Just about the whole bus was out, save us, the driver, and a few women up front who wore their shirts over the mouths and noses, so that all you could see of their faces were their terrified eyes. I popped open the window up top, to try to let some air in. But this only seemed to make things worse. We moved up front, where the air seemed marginally better, and I realized when I got there that two of the women were pleading with the driver to do something.

Now, if there's one thing I know about bus drivers the world over, it's that they're all speed freaks. This guy was no different. One look at his eyes and you could tell that he was a dangerous lunatic. Nothing was putting this guy to sleep. Neither a Nyquil nor a ball-peen hammer to the cerebellum. Certainly not fumes.He wasn't going to do anything.

I try to maintain my cool when travelling, but when the locals start freaking, so do I. The bus was only getting worse, and I didn't want to be aboard when the fumes finally got to the driver and he went barreling off the highway into the churning Pacific. And at the next toll crossing we came to, Harper and I insisted that we be let off, right there, right then, damn the consequences.

I knew we were near Rosarito, but just how close I wasn't sure. I tried to get the answer from the helful federale lounging by the side of the highway, a sixteen year-old kid with an enormous rifle. He was incredibly expressive, and I'm sure he gave us great directions. But again. Poco, poco. Solomente un poco español, mucho gusto.

And so we tromped across the highway, and on the other side, We flagged a passing taxi, just as it started to rain. We asked him how much to go to Rosarito. He told us $5, to which I agreed, and then drove us two or three blocks.

I'll simply say this about Rosarito: it is a blight. And this: I do not like college students.

And so now, it was time for a taxi to the border. Fuck busses. Fuck public transit. Let's just fucking get there. I'm tired, and I think I have a hangover from all that carbon monoxide.

Back to San Diego, and its little light rail, which we rode to the middle of nowhere, and then waited half an hour for a bus to take us to Pacific Beach.

Oh, how I love Pacific Beach. It makes me wish that I was a surfer. Or at least a dumb guy with a cruiser that I could ride up and down the walk all day.

We headed straight for the Surfer's Lodge, a hotel on the beach where we had stayed before. But there was no room at the inn. Or the inn down the street. Or the inn across town. Dammit. Where's an Internet café?

And lo, it came to pass that there should be a golf convention in town, and every room in San Diego was to be booked. Nor were there any rental cars available.

By now the plastic was out and money was no object--but nor was it of any use. We could find nothing. High end. Low end. Even the Banana Bungalow, a keg-sucking hostel on the beach-- was booked.

Until, finally--finally, finaly, finally-- around ten that night, we found The Second Floor Hostel. They didn't have a room, but they had a few beds. In fact, the beds were booked, but they thought that the guests who had booked them were not going to show up, so why didn't we come by? And even if the guests did turn up; they wouldn't turn us away, they promised. No, we could stay on a couch or the floor for free, if we needed.

But luckily there were beds in the common rooms. And so Harper dragged into the women's dorm room, and I the men's. And as it aproached midnight, I thought back on our valentine's day, starting with the sounds of a screeching whore violating our night, and ending on a single bed alone in a room-full of snoring marines.

This year, we went to Tiburon.