la bufadora ~ ensenada, mexico

neither of us had been to ensenada, but we both had been wanting to go & decided that this would be the day. we got a late start. after a few stops, we hopped on the toll-road (cuota) & we were on our way. the drive down was beautiful and definitely worth every peso to take the toll-road. no pot-holes, very few cars, and a view of the ocean pretty much the entire drive down. i got excited. THIS is the mexico i've been wanting to see! we got to ensenada probably a little after 2. somehow we almost got lost but asked a guy for directions & realized we still had a ways to go. close to an hour later, we made it. we were at la bufadora. we have both been a little skeptical about this place. a blowhole, really??? how exciting can it be? after walking down a whole street of stores where workers were telling us to 'hurry, let's make a deal while my boss is gone' & dozens of people offering us an alcohol-free mini shot of pina colada, we found the blowhole and about 5286273 other people. not really... it was actually nice that it wasn't so crowded. maybe being there on a friday made the difference?! who knows. anyway, we stayed at la bufadora for a while. watching the water shoot up super high and hoping that it would shoot far enough to get the dorks standing in front of it (we were on the side) soaking wet. it did a couple times, much to our enjoyment! being there reminded me a lot of the states. there were gringos aplenty & a lot of english was heard. we decided to head back to the car and maybe find a place to eat and a hotel to sleep in for the night. well... little did we know it at the time... but our fun day out would soon take a scary little turn.

when we got back to the car, alex went to a mini mercado to get us some drinks while i put the baby in the car. then he got back and got in the drivers side and i handed him the keys. he said 'where's the car key??'. my heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach. i had used the alarm fob thingy to unlock the car, so i didn't notice the key was missing. out of all of the keys on the keychain to fall off, the car key was the one. go figure. here we are, in a place we don't know, very little money, and no car key. we don't have a spare car key. even if we did, it probably would have been at home, in a locked house, in the junk drawer. many different thoughts flooded my mind. do we sleep in the car? do we take a taxi? do we call someone back home for help? did someone find the key & will they try to steal the car? i suddenly felt extremely overwhelmed. the only thing we could do was re-trace our steps and that's what we did. we got all the way back to the blowhole & still no key had been found. the only thing left to do was start telling everyone and their mama that we had lost a key and ask if anyone had seen it.

luckily we came across a man who was in one of the shops. we told him and a couple others that we lost a key. he asked if it was a ford & said he found a key on the ground. YES! YES! WE HAVE A FORD! i didn't scream that out loud, but i sure as heck wanted to. of course i started to question this man's credibility. he looked like he had had at least 10 beers too many & smelled like it too. he said that his friend had it, so we walked with him to find his friend. alex offered to give him some $$ for his help and of course he asked for more. but seriously... without his help, it could have been an even bigger disaster. so his friend pulls out the key and it looks like ours, but one can never be too cautious. so the beer guy walked to the car with us so we could try it. IT WORKED! i said a couple more prayers, took out some change for the man, buckled the baby into her car seat & we were outta there. completely wiped out but ever so thankful to be in our car, driving, relieved. after stopping for dinner at costco, we decided to just go home instead of staying at a hotel. the drive home was uneventful. my two loves slept most of the way. i just enjoyed the ocean breeze & took the time to count my blessings. even though this trip had a few snags, i still chalk it up to us being some explorer-noobs (this is for my gaming hubby, haha). this just taught us a lesson.

now that i've had a taste of travelling and seeing other things that mexico as to offer, i want more!