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The Sun King

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Jean-Loup Bitterlin of El Rey Sol with My Brother Dan

One final word about our trip to Ensenada, by way of a coda. We were amazed to find on Lopez Mateos a high quality French restaurant, that despite the fact that Ensenada has no shortage of good food. We were staying around the corner at the hotel affiliated with the Restaurant El Rey Sol, namely the Posada el Rey Sol. (The name refers to Louis XIV, France’s Le Roi Soleil, or Sun King.)

Dan and I were spending our last night in Baja, and we were all glorious tacoed out; so we decided to try for a nice French meal. It was a whole lot better than nice; in fact, it was outstanding. We started out with an appetizer of beef carpaccio, which was accompanied by an amuse-bouche that resembled a French bruschetta with cheese and a delightfully creamy sopa de verduras (vegetable soup).

As his main course, Dan ordered the Chicken Cordon Bleu, and I had the Linguine Neptuno (with assorted super-fresh mariscos). With it, Dan tried a glass of Guadalupe Valley Nebbiolo red wine, while, ever the proletarian, I had a Dos Equis (XX) beer.

A Plaque Outside the Restaurant Honoring Its 50th Anniversary

A meal like this in the United States would run at least a couple hundred dollars. We wound up paying around $70.00 in pesos. The sad thing is that the equivalent meal in the States would not necessarily be as tasty or fresh as what we had.

All I can say after the best meal I’ve had in several years, Vive la France—en Mexique!

Stateside

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The Long Wait at El Border

Last Thursday, Dan and I left Ensenada just as the cruise ship Navigator of the Seas was just disgorging the thousands of bandy-legged passengers who shortly would be wandering the streets in search of one of them there cervezis. It was as if we had Ensenada to ourselves, and just when it would become crowded with noisome boat people, we were out of there.

The drive back to Tijuana was uneventful. The wait at the San Ysidro Port of Entry to the United States took about ninety minutes, which was nowhere as long as the three- and four-hour waits of which I had heard—but those were probably on weekends. Still, it was no fun waiting with multiple lines of cars idling in line while kamikaze vendors tried desperately to make a sale. The only sale they made from us was one sawbuck to use a tiny bathroom that had no lighting. I didn’t know whether I was urinating in a toilet, a bucket, or my shoes.

One of the items for sale at the border were plaster statues of Donald Trump and outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. I guess there hadn’t been sufficient time for plaster statues of Kamala Harris or Claudia Sheinbaum, the new Mexican President, to be cast.

I dropped my brother off at the lot where his truck was parked for his drive back to the Coachella Valley and hopped onto I-805 for the four-hour ride back to my apartment in West Los Angeles.

La Bufadora

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The La Bufadora Blowhole South of Ensenada

There aren’t really too many tourist sights near Ensenada, unless you feel you must include Hussong’s Cantina on the list. Neither Dan nor I wanted to visit that particular institution, however, so we drove south to the Punta Banda Peninsula 17 miles (27 km) south of Ensenada.

According to Wikipedia:

La Bufadora is often considered a marine geyser, however, it does not have a thermal source or cause, as geysers do. In this case, the spout of sea water is the result of air, trapped in a sea cave, exploding upwards. Air is forced into the cave by wave action and is released when the water recedes, ejecting water up to 100 ft. [30.5 meters] above sea level. This interaction not only creates the spout, but a thunderous noise as well.

The interval between eruptions is fairly constant, and matches the dominant swell, confirming that the activity at La Bufadora is determined by surface ocean waves. Between 2005 and 2011 the recurrence between eruptions was between 13 and 17 seconds.

La Bufadora is one of the largest blowholes in the world.

Normally, on a busy day, visitors must run the gauntlet from the parking lot to the blowhole, bypassing a slew of souvenir stands, food vendors, highly suspicious pharmacies, and bars. But, as we were there on a day when there were no cruise ships in the Port of Ensenada, most of the businesses were closed. On the day after, I am sure the place was hopping.

La Bufadora Between Upswells

In a word, La Bufadora was an interesting place. I did get tired of telling importunate vendors on the way to the blowhole, however, that I was a cheap bastard and wasn’t interested in souvenirs.

Mercado Negro

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At Ensenada’s Seafood Market

It is generally referred to as the Mercado Negro, the Black Market. Not because its contents are smuggled in illegally, but because the market used to be on the dingy side. In yesterday’s post, I mistakenly referred to it by the name Mercado de Pescados. Actually, it is more properly called the Mercado de Mariscos.

I love visiting Latin American seafood markets. Perhaps the most impressive I have ever seen is the one in Puerto Montt, Chile—mainly because so much of what was on display was totally unknown and strange to me. That was not the case in Ensenada.

As my brother and I wandered down the aisles looking at the seafood on offer, one enterprising young salesman suggested I buy one of the large fish and have one of the local restaurants prepare it for me. I had this picture of myself hauling a smelly and dripping 10 pound (4.5 kg) salmon from one restaurant to another begging they would take it off my hands and filet and cook it for us. Nice try, kid!

Given all the seafood stands and restaurants in Ensenada, I was surprised that the mercado de mariscos was so small, but then Ensenada is flanked by a number of small fishing villages which probably also supply it. Some of these villages, like Puerto Nuevo and Popotla, have developed reputations of their own for seafood.

Street Grunting

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My Brother Dan at Lily’s Tacos in Ensenada

The city of Ensenada is full of fascinating street carts and little hole-in-the-wall restaurants specializing in fish and shrimp tacos and other seafood dishes. The first one we went to, Lily’s Tacos, is right by the Mercado de Pescados (aka the Mercado Negro). It was visited by Anthony Bourdain on a show in his “Parts Unknown” TV series. In fact, there is a picture of Bourdain on the wall behind my brother’s hat.

I had two fish tacos and a Corona. As is the custom, we were given the warm corn tortilla with a plain piece of lightly breaded fish. In front of us were various salsas, crema, pickled onions, chiles en escabeche, shredded cabbage, salt, and other condiments that we spooned onto the fish tacos. We were in hog heaven.

Guero’s, Another Fish Taco Vendor

Whereas Lily’s Tacos had a few tables for customers, many of the taco stands were for standees only, such as Guero’s and Fenix. I tended to prefer sit-down places, as I had to take medications with my meals, including a shot of insulin.

Dan and I actually did go to Ensenada mainly to eat fish tacos, and we were not disappointed in our quest. Fish tacos in the U.S, usually are too heavily breaded, made with frozen fish old enough to vote, and minus the rich condiments that made an Ensenada fish taco a culinary treat. Yes, I mean you, Rubio’s Fish Tacos. May you shrivel up out of shame!

Mexico has a rich tradition of street grunting. Don’t feel like a heavy meal? Just get a taco or a quesadilla or chicharrones or carnitas or a tostada. It won’t set you back too much; and it can be an amazing treat. Of course, you have to be able to judge which carts are good and which are unsanitary traps. One easy method: Check out the number and type of customers waiting in line.

Fortunately, all the places we tried in Ensenada were strictly A-1.

Back from Ensenada

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Ensenada Sign at La Bufadora

Yesterday afternoon I returned from Ensenada, where I spent a couple of days with my brother Dan. Unfortunately, the long drive left me with a bit of a sore throat, which I fought by sucking Ricola lozenges. It made me think that I have to scale down some of my travel ambitions, as I am no longer as young as I used to be. But that doesn’t mean that I am falling out of love with travel: It just means I have to do everything more slowly, in stages.

I met my brother in front of one of the San Ysidro parking lots by the border crossing. He drove down I-15 from the Coachella Valley, while I took the I-405, the I-5, and the I-805. Because of heavy traffic and several accidents on the highway, it took me four hours to reach the border.

At that point, Dan took the wheel to cross the border and take the scenic 1-D Quota Road past Rosarito Beach to Ensenada. I was relieved to be just a passenger for that final leg of the trip, as driving in Mexico could be a challenge.

Fortunately, the weather on Tuesday and Wednesday was perfect: breezy and in the low 70s Fahrenheit (21 to 26° Celsius). For some reason there weren’t many American tourists in town, so it felt as if we had the whole place to ourselves. We were surprised to see that a lot of the businesses were closed, until we realized that most of the Yanqui invaders came from cruise ships like The Navigator of the Seas and various Carnival Cruise liners. In fact, only as we were leaving town yesterday morning did we see a liner loosing boat people on the streets of Ensenada.

For the next few days, I will describe in some detail about what we did, what we ate (hey, we went down there for fish tacos—and we were not disappointed), and what we saw.

Tres Días en Baja

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The Port of Ensenada, Mexico

I will not be posting again until Friday, when I return from three days in Ensenada, Baja California. Early tomorrow, I will be driving down to the San Ysidro border crossing and meeting my brother there. (He will be coming down from Palm Desert in the Coachella Valley.) At that point, I will hand over the wheel to Dan, who will drive us in my car down to Ensenada, which is something like an hour’s drive south of the border.

Although Ensenada is a major cruise port, we will not have to fight our way past boat people until 8 AM Thursday, when the USS Navigator of the Seas will begin disgorging 3,100 passengers right around the tiome we will be heading back to the border.

Why are we going to Ensenada? Why, for the fish tacos, of course. The city has a reputation for the best taco carts in Mexico, especially where seafood is concerned. When I return home, I expect to have developed gills to aid in my breathing.

Sardonic Old Gringo

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American Writer Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

He was one of the two greatest writers of fiction about the Civil War, the other being Stephen Crane. His short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” is one of my clearest memories from high school English. He also wrote some good horror stories, plus a book of sardonic definitions he called The Devil’s Dictionary (1906). As he wrote in the preface to that book: “[T]he author hopes to be held guiltless by those to whom the work is addressed—enlightened souls who prefder dry wines to sweet, sense to sentiment, wit to humor and clean English to slang.”

I thought I would present a few of my favorite entries from The Devil’s Dictionary that I found particularly witty.

ABORIGINES, n. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber: they fertilize.

ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.

ACTUALLY, adv. Perhaps; possibly.

COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor’s uneasiness.

EVANGELIST, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.

FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.

LIGHTHOUSE, n. A tall building on the seashore in which the government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.

MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.

PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one’s self and to nobody else.

In 1914, Bierce is said to have crossed the border into Mexico during that country’s revolution and disappeared. In 1985, Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote an excellent book entitled The Old Gringo speculating what happened to Bierce during the fighting between Pancho Villa and the government forces of General Victoriano Huerta.

To Ensenada for Tacos

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Doña Sabina of La Guerrerense in Ensenada

An hour south of the Mexican border is the city of Ensenada, which along with Tijuana and several other locations in Baja California has become a foodie hotbed. And we’re not talking sit-down restaurants with white tablecloths and snooty sommeliers, but food stands where crowds of standees munch on world-class Mexican food. Ensenada is famous for having invented the fish taco and the margarita; and Tijuana is home of the Caesar Salad.

In September, my brother and I will drive to Ensenada for a few days and indulge in some serious street grunting. To get an idea of what that might be like, check out this video from Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown” show:

The little lady in both the photo and the video is Doña Sabina Bandera, whose stand—““La Guerrerense”—is famous for seafood tostadas. In fact, Bourdain called it the best street food purveyor in the world.

I have long felt that something interesting is going on in the Mexican food scene, especially in those parts of Baja so close to Alta California. It will be fun to have some of the best seafood dishes on the continent, and not have to pay a king’s ransom for the privilege.

Two Conquistadores

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Francisco Pizarro (1478-1541), Conqueror of the Incas

The two great Spanish conquerors of pre-Columbian civilizations could not have been more different from each other. Hernán Cortés was born of lesser Spanish nobility in Medellín, Castile. According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who served with him at the conquest of the Aztecs:

He was of good stature and body, well proportioned and stocky, the color of his face was somewhat grey, not very cheerful, and a longer face would have suited him more. His eyes seemed at times loving and at times grave and serious. His beard was black and sparse, as was his hair, which at the time he sported in the same way as his beard. He had a high chest, a well shaped back and was lean with little belly.

He was also fairly well educated, though his parents had despaired of making a lawyer out of him, though he did serve for two years as a notary, which did equip him with a legal background of sorts.

Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of the Incas of Peru, was actually the second cousin once removed of Cortés, though nowhere near as well educated. In fact, he was illiterate as well as being illegitimate. Moreover, he was such a poor horseman that he confused Atahualpa, the Inca, because he was always on foot.

Where Pizarro’s background shows is that while Cortés wrote at great length to the King of Spain to justify his behavior in New Spain (Mexico and Central;America)., Pizarro never wrote anything. In addition, many of his soldiers were equally illiterate. In fact, when Agustín de Zarate was sent by the King to investigate the Inca conquest, he was forbidden by Francisco de Carvajel, a lieutenant of Gonzalo Pizarro’s, to “record his master’s deeds.” Zarate did it anyhow, but from the safety of His Majesty’s Dutch domains.

Did the difference between the two conquerors have any positive results for the conquered? Not at all. The record of misery for the native peoples of the New World was in both cases marked by death, disease, cruelty, and slavery.