GOT BAJA?

"Poor Mexico! So far from God, so close to the United States!" 

Porfirio Diaz, Mexican President from 1876 to 1910

We've been enjoying Baja California (the northern part of the Baja California peninsula) since 1981 for its surf spots, friendly people, the roadside fried fish tacos, and the iced buckets of beer.  I used to drive my 1966 VW Transporter down to Rosarito Beach from San Diego with friends to surf.

After several years of searching for the right location, we chose to build a house in central Rosarito Beach. Rosarito is half an hour south of San Diego- just south of Tijuana.  The toll road from San DIego to Rosarito is fast, safe, easy and costs 30 pesos each way.

The central Rosarito beach is 4 miles of sand with the Tourist Zone and mega-nightclubs (like Papas & Beer) at the south end and the Rosarito electrical power plant (aka the "Spa PeMex" for the very warm water outlet there) at the north end. When I first started coming to Rosarito the main road was just dirt and horses were as common as cars. Now it's four lanes of craziness with stoplights, McDonalds, Subway, Home Depot, WalMart- you name it. Still plenty of horses around though.  The location we choose to build our  Baja house is right where I used to surf over 30 years ago.  Meant to be...

There's lots of great restaurants in Rosarito and the local food draw is the deep fried local Lobster with tortillas, rice and beans.  It's kind of a rip off for $28 or so, but everyone should try deep fried lobster tail once.  I prefer a whole deep-fried fish when in Puerto Nuevo and save my pennies for real Maine lobster.  The dozens of roadside taco shops are always a good bet and where the real Mexicans eat. 

The surf spot K38 is the home of the fish taco.  "Loncheras" (small food trucks) would park along the roadside and set up awnings and chairs and buckets of beers.  Fish, shrimp and lobster tacos and burritos for $1 each.

For the "chingadera" shoppers- there are hundreds of local artisans and their retail shops specializing in rustic wood furniture and ironworks.  Most every cash register in town is programmed for dollars or pesos at the bank rate and the larger retail stores gladly accept credit cards. 

The group of small islands off the coast of Rosarito Beach are the Coronado Islands- viewed from downtown San Diego as well as here in Mexico- and not to be confused with Coronado "Island" in San Diego (which is really a peninsula anyway). The four Coronado Islands are now used as a Mexican navy base outpost and nature preserve. The continental shelf drops off here, so the fishing is excellent.  There was a small casino once on the main island during the 1930's.  The PeMex off-shore oil tankers are always present.  They come and go after hooking-up to offload fuel for the power plant which generates the towns electricity.

Rosarito Beach has over 4,000 American full and part time residents along with all our gringo trappings.   Home Depot, Burger King, WalMart, CostCo, Subway... it's followed us down here.  I'm still waiting for the Dunkin' Donuts though.  The real estate boom busted hard here too. There are 4500 unsold untis and 17 unfinished mega-projects. It will take years for this area to recover economically- well after the recovery Stateside.  It is starting to come back to life though.  We think it's a good time for educated tourists and real estate investors to give Baja a fresh look.

Even with the waves of narco violence that passed through, Baja is a wonderful place to live and we are within our comfort zone.  You do have to plan with security in mind. No place on earth is as safe as it used to be or as safe as we think it is.  At least here we have our heads up and are pro-active.  That's probably a good thing on either side of the border these days.

Click the photo below to see our location on Google Earth.  Go ahead... zoom out and use the mouse to explore the Rosarito Beach hillsides where many of the photos on this page were taken. 

This is the view from the house out to the Coronado Islands.