(sing along) Over the Mountains and Thru the Plateaus...
Getting to San Vicente
We wanted to write a bit about our [crazy] monthly 4-hour
trip to our San Vicente Ministry Center.
San Vicente (also Misión San Vicente Ferrer) is a farming
village in Baja Norte, Mexico, 125 miles south of the USA-Mex border. A
delegation of the Ensenada Municipality, there are about 4,000 inhabitants,
with another 1000 people in the surrounding ejidos (farming divisions) and farming
companies. San Vicente is nestled at the northern edge of the ‘San Quintin
Valley’, one of Mexico’s biggest farming areas. Situated 50 miles south of
Ensenada and 50 miles north of San Quintin, it sits right on the ‘Mexico 1’,
also called the Baja Trans-peninsular highway, which starts at Tijuana (TJ) and
ends in Los Cabos, which is the southern tip of the Baja peninsula.
For us, SV being on the highway is a huge plus. It means
that we are able to travel on relatively stable roads that the Mexican
government keeps up, since the ‘Mex 1’ is the commerce artery between TJ and
the south. Note the ‘relatively stable’... rock slides, hillsides sliding into
the ocean and heavily-driven roads that require on-going construction have
meant some pretty wild driving. You see, when the government does road
construction, they just divert you through an open field...
We’ve been working consistently in San Vicente for 11 years.
Chris did a couple of weeks training Community Health Workers back in 1998 and
in 2002 there, but a permanent, on-going ministry started in 2006. Our vehicles
have been properly beaten up by Baja driving.
So, why does a 120-mile trip take 4-hours? Well, the Mex 1
crawls through three major Mexican cities (no expressway by-pass), and we have
to go up-and-over four major mountain passes to get to San Vicente.
Our trip has ‘stages’:
<>through Mexican border customs, then through Tijuana
to the ‘Mex 1’. On a good day, it’s just road-rally speed driving and dodging
potholes. On a bad day, we get diverted through central TJ...
<>we pass by (or through, depending on the divert)
Rosarito, a pay booth and onto the gorgeous coastal Mex 1 ‘cuota’. Right now,
the road is intact, but since the south end of this section literally goes over
the San Andreas fault line, it gets torn up real easy. For about 2 years, we
had to divert through the desert, because a significant stretch fell into the
ocean in 2014, and additional 35 miles/1 hour to the trip then. Either way,
this involves going through an ear-popping mountain pass (#1)...
<>then through Ensenada, Mexico, a beautiful port city
on the Pacific. Traffic can be snarled, but we get through, buy supplies and
aim south on the ‘Mex 1’. By the way, the stop-offs for groceries are not
counted in the trip time here... [confession time: our favorite taco stops are
along the way here, and we usually grab a tasty and inexpensive lunch...]
<>then it’s the torturous drive through Maneadero, the
city with the highest traffic accident numbers in Baja. Roads in severe dis-repair,
aggressive drivers, numerous trucks and local vehicles that belch smoke as they
try and get up to 15 miles an hour... torturous...
<>we break out of Maneadero, up and through the second
mountain pass (#2), then down into the Santo Tomas valley. Numerous wineries in
view of our drive...
<>then the really high mountain pass (#3), ears
popping as we crawl up, weave around, crawl down, pin-turn after pin-turn and
finally onto the plateau. This is white-knucle driving, with so many trucks
trying to push through, and other trucks barely making 15 miles an hour on the
climbs...
<>the plateau is weave-weave around some minor
mountain peaks, and drivers are constantly trying to pass and make up time...
<>final, moderate-height mountain range (#4), and
then... there it is! San Vicente comes into view, at the lip of the Valley.
San Vicente sits on a valley-plateau, about 16 Km inland
from the Pacific coast, with a minor mountain range between it and the ocean to
the west. There is a significant mountain range to the east, with peaks going
into the 7,500-feet level. It’s basic climate is chaparral desert, but does get
some coastal breezes in the evenings.
The fastest we have ever made the trip was 3 hours and 25
minutes. The longest was... wait for it... 8 hours and 15 minutes.
We arrive, un-load into the ministry center, and get our
bearings. Drink lot’s of Oral Rehydration, the shift to desert dryness with
altitude always hits us when we arrive.
The trip back requires the same route and amount of time...
replay!
SO, thanks for listening to our travel-log... blessings!
chris
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