harryfat1

Haha, sorry guys. Friday night is my movie night with my wife at home so didn't have time to upload more stuff. Has anyone watched the TV series - The Witcher? We have been following that series. Not always easy to find a TV series we both follow from the beginning. She typically likes drama series and I only like series where there are explosions or killings (not people dying of illness and everyone cries about it). Spoiler alert - as it was low tide time, the Blow Hole effect wasn't great so don't get your hopes up

There’s a Kayak version of the Blow Hole you can get via the cruise ship. They get to see the Blow Hole from the water level.

Strategically placed restroom right by the platform to watch the Blow Hole. Bring your money 20230810_113704.mp4 OK. We finally made it here-here. The rock area where the water spray always comes out is wet and have moss growth

Alrighty, we are here. Well, not exactly here-here. The lady artist is the last of the sales vendors and you are at the blow hole after you round the corner but here are a few area pictures where she is drawing her inspiration from - definitely better scenery than downtown

The only thing we bought from the whole place was the artist who was painting at the end of the long strip. She has the price listed so no need to haggle. She’s just there painting away and you buy whatever strikes your fancy. We typically either buy magnets or Christmas ornaments during our travels so we have a collection of the various places we have visited.

Yeah, a lot more established now. Alexa offered to help anyone bargain if they needed help. Downtown Ensenada is blah.

More food 20230810_113331.mp4 Yeah, very hot. Can't touch this...

Are we there yet? Almost. I see some water. And of course, there's a bathroom to the left per the sign in case you need to go. Bring your 75 cents to walk into one… More sales pitch

This is my visit to the Blow Hole even though it's my 4th time in town so I don't know what it was like previously but it's much more developed now as more and more cruise ships visit Ensenada. Princess Cruises use Ensenada as the mandatory foreign port visit during the Hawaii island sailings during the winter months when sailing to/from Vancouver is not a viable option. As previously discussed, RCI also dropping by Ensenada for their 7-day Mexico cruise so the town is part of the West Coast cruise stop for many itineraries. Did you guys just flag down a taxi driver to get there? Pretty long drive from town

Yeah, they deliberately set up the gauntlet walk where you can only enter and exit in one direction. I guess they are not aggressive in that there are literally hundreds/thousands of tourists coming by when the cruise ships are in town on top of regular tourists so if one "fish" slips by, they just target another one

Habana Banana. Big operation but has very bad online reviews. Supposedly they are being accused of poor animal treatments and sell the photo opts for money. Read the reviews on Yelp and Tripadvisor for yourself and decide if you want your money to go there. Easy pass for us as we planned to go to Lidia Tacos to eat anyway. Are we there yet?

We now enter the sales pitch part of the tour where they don't have free samples but just a sales pitch. Blah, Blah, Blah... Queue up Fleetwood Mac Tequila with Scorpion inside 20230810_112740.mp4 More liquor to bring home

So is your stomach full? Enough free samples? Yeah, me too. My favorite samples were the Churros. I assume most people know what a Churro is? Your local Costco food court used to have them but I believe they have been phased out this year. If you don’t know what it is, it’s like a Mexican donut except it’s more crunchy and harder than American round donuts. Tastes really good when it’s hot off the fryer… Hey, I never said they are good for you, just that they taste good. Life is full of these "tastes good but bad for you" food. My dream world finding a place where people tell you ice cream is good for you and you need to eat it daily...

Wait, did I hear someone say they want more samples? Do you want more? Well, you are in luck... 20230810_112610.mp4

More free sample stops - does anyone like spicy gummy bears? Yeah, doesn't taste very good in my opinion but it must be an acquired taste 20230810_112539.mp4

More shops - remember they made this a long walk on purpose as they have you as a captive audience. Many people are visiting their relatives in prison today as today must be parole hearing day (aka massive amount of walk-by shopping) See the pineapple pina colada someone from our tour bought? Mexican pharmacy is very popular as people can get their prescription meds at a lower price here than back home

This dude tried to sell tacos at $2.50 each but I rather go to Lidia's as they look cleaner 20230810_112356.mp4 We made a stop here to get free samples of Pina Coladas and some members of the tour group bought the pineapple filled with pina coladas. I think I heard them say it was $12 but don't hold me to it as I'm not a drinker. More free sample stop If you are a big sports fan, you can get a logo mug of your favorite team

Lidia’s Tacos. The first restaurant is next to the parking lot. Alexa recommends it and I heard other tour guides recommend it as well later on so it's very popular. Good reviews online and on Yelp (4.7 stars) so that’s where we will be at the back end of the tour The first gauntlet is the green shirt guys. There’s a flock of them as they swarm you. No way you can avoid them like you can if there's only one of them. If you get past the green shirt guys, next to them are the purple shirt guys... 20230810_112422.mp4

Before I show y'all pictures of the Blow Hole, let me show you the lay of the land first. Per the Google map, you are parked at the upper part of the map - see the parking lot? You need to get to the other end of the path at the Blow hole near the water on the left. Per Google, that’s over 600 yards. You say, yeah, whatever, dude, no big deal, I can walk 600 yards easily. No worries. Yes, but the added wrinkle is the 600-yard is like walking a gauntlet with people shoving free samples in your face every minute. I saw the walk on YouTube before leaving home (as you know an anal 9.2 person would do the homework beforehand) and one tour guide said this is equivalent to Mexican Costco with various free samples. That is very true. He didn’t mention how aggressive the workers are in shoving food/trying to get you to talk to them and then going into their shop. You will soon see what I mean but just thought I give y’all a heads-up

Thanks for everyone’s input on the differences in gas prices. I know CA has higher prices due to the stricter environmental laws but didn’t realize the gap is that dramatic between states. I also looked up the taxes for a gallon of gas in CA and that’s 77 cents/gallon as that's part of the extra cost. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-gas-tax-rates-2023/ I got curious and did some sample gas prices on the Gas Buddy phone App – everyone should download the App on their phone as it shows you the best price in any neighborhood across the US as you travel. Here are the lowest prices on what is showing at various large cities in the western/midwestern states (note: I throw out the lowest price on the list if it’s too low compared to the rest as it’s not realistic to get that price unless you live nearby that station): +++++++++++++++++++++ San Francisco - $5.37 Los Angeles - $5.63 Anchorage - $4.49 Honolulu - $4.64 Portland - $4.27 Seattle - $4.99 Las Vegas - $4.63 Phoenix - $4.59 Boise - $3.99 Salt Lake City - $3.86 Albuquerque - $3.49 Cheyenne - $3.69 Denver - $3.29 San Antonio - $3.07 Chicago - $3.75 ++++++++++++++++ Here are some East Coast cities: Atlanta - $3.19 Miami - $3.33 Raleigh - $3.13 Philadelphia - $3.63 Washington DC - $3.43 NYC - $3.85 Boston - $3.55 +++++++++++ There is a pattern where everything on the East Coast is under $4. Then as you migrate to the western states, at the states of Nevada/Arizona, the gas is above $4 in both states with Idaho also at the $4 mark. Then as you move westward everything is above $4 in Oregon/Washington/Alaska/Hawaii. Of course, you have CA above $5

Be sure to bring some small changes/coins as the bathrooms here cost money. Yeah, for real. There’s 75 cents (USD) to use the bathrooms here at the Blow Hole. On YouTube, it used to be 50 cents earlier this year but I guess inflation is also here in Mexico (but apparently not in the RCCL food costs which keep going down)

OK. We made it to the Blow Hole. Time stamp is 11:15. Alexa will take us to the Blow hole and then we have free time for lunch or shopping and meet back here at 1:15 at bus #206 (making sure I remember the number by taking a picture of it – how anal am I?). The sign says Welcome to the Blow Hole

Here's a bit of news that nobody cares about but I will share it anyway as I received an email this morning from CC. Apparently, I have reached a milestone of 5,000 posts here at CC and they sent me a congratulatory email as well as 2 digital coupons for free iced tea at the Windjammer to be used on my next RCI cruise. Woo Hoo! That makes all the typing all these trip reports worthwhile in building up my post count... Per the software, it took me 18 years to reach this milestone as it just means I am not a regular poster here at CC. Actually, the side story is that I was a member of CC even before 18 years as I started with the screen name "Harryfat" in the 90s but I stopped cruising for a while when the boys were born. By the time I came back to cruising mode a few years later, I couldn't log into my account and the only way to reset my password back then was to have the system generate a password to the email that I signed up in - the AOL email. Only the older folks know what AOL email was - You Got Mail.... The only thing was back in the old days AOL charged money for monthly membership and access to their email address. I stopped paying the fee after awhile and I wasn't about to re-activate the AOL account just for CC. So I just created a new access, Harryfat1, since I couldn't get into the original Harryfat account. In theory, I lost some posting history from back then. Oh, well, like I said, info nobody cares about. Unless someone has some AOL story to share...

I was curious on how the whole fish farm thing works in Ensenada and looked up a couple of YouTube videos on it. Fascinating stuff:

That's just a crazy low price compared to what we are paying in CA. There's no gas station in the Bay Area that is selling below $5/gallon gas. Even Costco is selling at $5.12. How do you guys get gas at such a low rate? Is there a refinery in SC that keeps the prices super low?