Turns out you can drink the water in Mexico.
The trick is knowing when and where it is safe to do so. For that we turned to Bruce “Bruno” Anderson, owner and lead guide of Go Baja/Go Desert Riding Tours (www.gobajariding.com).
We have now toured a small part of Baja California twice with Anderson and his staff and both rides quickly became two of our all-time favorites. The riding was great, the scenery absolutely spectacular, the food awesome, Anderson’s tours all-inclusive and the experiences something we won’t soon forget.
Yes, the water comment to open the story was a “hook,” but truth be known, Anderson did make a point to tell us on each ride where it was—and wasn’t—safe to drink the water. It’s that kind of detail that made the trips so memorable. That and the tours are all-inclusive. You show up with your riding gear (or rent Go Baja Riding’s stuff), a little spending money and you’re ready to ride. That’s about it.
Anderson has competed in the famed Baja race for years and guided motorcycle and side-by-sides for nearly two decades. So he knows his way around Baja California very well.
Two Different Rides
Our first experience riding Baja California was last fall when Can-Am first introduced its high performance Maverick X3 Turbo side-by-side. That event included two full days of riding and two nights in Baja California. We went back in early December to tag along on another ride, this time spending three days of riding (nearly 500 miles in all) and three nights.
We essentially rode many of the same trails and roads on both rides but went in different directions, i.e., counter clockwise on the Can-Am ride and clockwise on the December ride. Both times we followed many parts of the world-famous Baja race course.
There simply is too much to cover in one story so we’re breaking our two rides up into two stories, this one here and another in the following issue of Dirt Toys Magazine.
It’s obvious Anderson and his crew place a big emphasis on safety. After all, as he explains in the driver’s meeting the day before the ride, “There’s no helicopter (air ambulance) that’s going to come pick you up and take you to a hospital if you get hurt.” Not only are air ambulances pretty much non-existent, because the riding is so remote in some areas, it’s not like any other medical help would arrive on anything resembling a timely basis. So you have to ride safe because the consequences could be fairly disastrous if you don’t. Anderson explains all that in a pre-ride drivers meeting. Having said that, on both rides we went on with Anderson, he had an EMT along on the ride, just in case something did go wrong.
Covering All The Details
Anderson and the Go Baja Riding crew go over as many details as possible in the drivers meeting. That includes basic information like how to drive in certain situations (there were some novice side-by-side drivers on our second ride in Mexico) and how to operate the vehicle. After the meeting he showed the riders the bikes and side-by-sides to help familiarize them with the gear.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The Go Baja Riding experience actually starts in San Diego, the pickup point for the ride. The Go Baja Riding crew picks riders/drivers up at either the San Diego International Airport or a local specified hotel and you all drive to Ensenada, Mexico, together in the company’s vehicles. Of course, you need a passport to get into (and out of) Mexico. That information is included in a pre-tour checklist each participant is sent prior to the ride.
The drive to Ensenada is about an hour and a half, depending on how long it takes to cross the border. Once across the border and through Tijuana, the drive on Mexico Highway 1 along the Pacific Ocean is beautiful and the views amazing.
After arriving in Ensenada, we checked into the San Nicolas Hotel, a very historic hotel about three blocks from the Pacific Ocean and the cruise ship port. The hotel is older but clean and has a very nice pool. The rooms are big and there is a restaurant on site. Don’t drink the water, though.
There is some free time between the drivers meeting and supper, so we did go exploring a little on the touristy Av Adolfo Lopez Mateos. We were in a group, probably the safest way to travel, both times.
Good Traditional Food
If tradition holds true on all the Go Baja Riding tours, we went to dinner with the group to the same Ensenada restaurant on both our trips, which was fine with us because the food was very good. In fact, the food on both trips was very good and so authentic—probably more authentic than we could really appreciate. Homemade tortillas, homemade/fresh salsa, great seafood and steaks and excellent service were all consistent at every place we ate on both trips.
The Ensenada restaurant, Mariscos Bahia de Ensenada (Seafood Bay of Ensenada), was no exception. The seafood was fresh and the steaks and other Mexican dishes were so, so good.
After supper we turned in fairly early prior to both separate trips because we knew there was a lot of riding ahead on the next day.
We’re choosing to follow the route we took with Go Baja Tours on our December trip because it was more miles and was a full day longer than the Can-Am ride.
So, for our first day we dialed up about 166 miles as we rode right from the San Nicolas Hotel through the city and onto Mexico Highway 3 to the southeast on our way toward San Felipe. We went through a couple of military stops on the highway and past the turnoff to Ojo Negros before leaving the highway, which ended up being about 35 miles of road riding. Our turnoff was Acceso A Laguna Hanson, which heads north off the highway. It was dirt roads/trails from here until we picked up Mexico Highway 3 again to head into Valle de la Trinidad to meet up with the chase truck from Go Baja Riding Tours to fuel up.
