Day 10 - Ensenada to San Felipe

We left Ensendada this morning after having a good breakfast in our hotel. After asking some locals how to get out of the city, we headed for San Felipe. The first part of the drive was through the mountains. It was a cool, beautiful ride, then we descended into farmlands as far as we could see before turning into desert landscaping. The temps started rising and the roads worsened. Other than a few stretches of fairly new road, the remaining part of our journey until we left highway 3 was over a rough, potholed road. Steve called it the SMR (sh***y, Mexican road). Obviously, the economic development plan had not yet reached this highway. Our route and the small towns we passed thru today are part of the Baja 500 which will start in a few days. We saw lots of dirtbikes, rails, buggys, and toy haulers - some there for fun, some practicing for the 500. We reached the crossroad where San Felipe turns south and Mexicali goes north. The southern route is a new area of road not yet opened, so once again, we had to drive off-road for a mile or 2 until we reached pavement. The rest of the road to San Felipe was a new 2 lane, then 4 lane highway so the bikes were cranked up to 75 mph and we made up for some lost time. We arrived in San Felipe, found rooms at the Costa Azul hotel on the beach, changed, and headed for the ocean. This was the first time in our trip that we had been in the water and it was glorious! Steve and I can see the San Felipe mountains from our place in Cholla Bay so we wanted to be able to look back to our side of the Sea of Cortez from San Felipe. Ryaan took a picture of us waving at Cholla. After swimming and then showering, we strolled down the beach and stopped at a cute restaurant, Baja Max, with an outdoor patio for margaritas and chips. It was a very good marg, but for our never-ending quest for the best margarita, we continued on down the beach to another restaurant for more margs, fish tacos, ceviche, and guacamole. Another good margarita later, we walked out to a bridge overlooking the malecon and watched the seagulls, pelicans, and egrets waiting for the leftovers from the fisherman. it was a beautiful evening, we took lots of pictures, and as we were walking back down the beach towards our hotel, Steve noticed some fish remains and it was a baby hammerhead shark! We had no idea there were hammerheads in the Sea of Cortez. We walked back up to the malecon to the pork taco place and tried their tacos (which were excellent), then had one more margarita at El Capitan, across from our hotel. It was a wonderful night for our last night in Mexico. Tomorrow is a very early start, so it is early to bed tonight.