tacos

Day 325 – Baja, 2012, Day Two

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Pre-running in Baja is a tradition, all the race teams are down here for the SCORE 1000 race, it is a point to point race from Ensenada to LaPaz.  Total mileage is 1121.55 by Race Miles, 845.9 Highway miles.  We’re doing the highway section, Highway 1 for the entire race if all goes well for our race car.  Rich and I are responsible for communications for the Class 4 #401 car owned by Shaffer Motorsports and driven by friends, Mike Shaffer, Berne Strom, Daniel Aeberli and Shawn Twitchell.  All the boys have been pre-running for at least a week already, Rich and I began our pre-run today.

First stop Ojos Negro, just 40 kilometers from the start, next stop Valle de Trinidad, 117 km, then the road across from Hwy 3 to Hwy 1 through the actual Valley.  It was a steep, ridge laden road, narrow and gravelly.  We won’t do too much offroading here in Baja, so this was a nice drive for us.  We then took Hwy 1 back to Ensenada, but not until after a stop in Santo Tomas for some birria tacos.  Our goal today was to figure out how best to shadow the race car when it takes off from the start line on Thursday a little after noon.  Turns out that all of our options are about the same distance and time, so we get to pick our route.

Now, in case you are worried that we only got birria tacos today, don’t stress, we added pescada, camaron and carne asada to finish out our night down in the barrios of Ensenada and then topped it all off with a crème filled churro.  I am sooo lucky.

Tomorrow morning I will post info on how best to follow the race.  Stay tuned, it’s going to be an adventure.

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Day 326 – Baja, 2012, Day One

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Part One

I like to trick myself in to believing I’m adventurous, I’m not.  I like to trick myself in to believing I’m daring, I’m not.  I even like to believe that I’m smart on occasion, I’m not that either.  What I am, is determined and curious, and often hungry.

Rich left me alone at the hotel, we are at the Hotel Mission Santa Isabel in downtown Ensenada, Baja California.  For those of you not in the know, that’s really Mexico, not California as we know it.  I sat in the courtyard for awhile and decided I was hungry, so I grabbed my bag and headed out to find grub.  There were a number of different taco stands on the corners, I wasn’t brave enough to stop.  There are too many things I don’t know well enough, I don’t know the language, I don’t know the currency.  About the only thing I can do well is smile.  So I took myself down to a little stand that I have been to before and ordered “dos tacos camerones”.  I thought I did pretty well, but the cook asked me fish or shrimp, in English.  Shrimp
I headed back to my hotel, holed up in my room with my computer, I should be out exploring, but the practical part of me says, someone should know where I’m headed if I’m going out on the streets by myself.  Hmmm, maybe I am smart. , I repeated, sigh, I was sure I had ordered correctly.  The two tacos were delicious and I paid with my smallest American bill, the total was 42 pesos, I had a $5 bill.  I paid with that, and she gave pesos back, it looked good to me, but really, how would I know?

Part Two

Have you ever noticed how much better everything tastes in Baja?  Tonight we were treated to some carne asada by some local guys that are helping our race team.  The boys had spent the day at their shop working on various cars and trucks, by the time Rich came to get me, the wood had been lit on the barbecue.  Hector had picked up twelve pounds of carne asada sliced paper thin and was starting to grill that, the salsa, guacamole, onions and cilantro were ready.  The meat was grilled to perfection and then flour tortillas heated on the coals. Seventeen people were fed for at least an hour, one burrito after another fixed just the way we liked them, uno mas, was the only thing everyone thought, just one more please, they were delicious.