OUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MEXICO VAN LIFE

This video is brought to you by Fare Drop, AKA US. Farejob is an app that we created that sends you amazing flight deals to destinations all over the world. From your home airport, you can try it risk free for 90 days. Just go to faradrop.com, the link is in the description. Okay, on to the video.

Good morning. From just north of Ensenada and what has to be the most beautiful campsite we have ever stayed at. Last night was our third night in Mexico. We slept with the door open to this view and this sound.

I'm not sure how it gets much better than this, but I think there's a chance that this week it will. Today starts our first big driving leg of the trip. And over the next few days, if everything goes as planned, we are going to drive 300 miles south to Ojos de Libres to hopefully meet some very friendly. Well.

Yeah, yeah, next time, if we can leave that wrapped up, that'll save me some time.

So we have two different options for going south. Option one is taking Highway 1 1, Highway 1 down the Pacific side of the Baja Peninsula. Or we can take Highway 5 down the Gulf side. We're really hoping to do a lot of surfing on the second half of this trip on the Pacific side, so we've decided to switch it up. We're gonna take Highway 5 today.

First.

Pre washed greens.

How much cilantro is too much cilantro?

We've heard it can be a bit barren through this next part of the drive. So we've made a quick pit stop in Ensenada to stock up on a few days worth of food, which pretty much means guacamole and taco supplies.

This giant fridge that Eamon and Beck gave us last year is just the gift that keeps on giving. There's no way we'd be able to stock up on multiple days of meals without it.

Oh, I forgot.

You got more cereal. Might have to live under your pillow. All right, south we go. Actually, to straight tacos we go. Then we'll head south.

Gracia.

Oh, my gosh.

Okay. So we thought we'd take a little break from tacos and try a torta, which is basically a taco, but with bread instead of a tortilla. He stuffed this so big.

Best sandwich of my life. The bread is outrageously good. Everything in between is just so juicy and satisfying, I could cry. We might have another carbonara situation on our hands. Bon appetito.

Our friend Alex from the Vagabrothers recommended this place. Thank you. Alex felt Like I needed to give credit where credit is due. How many did you get?

Eight.

Okay, if you're ever in Ensenada, you have to come to a place called El Palamazo.

Wait.

Come to El Chailero, get the torta, and then go next door to El Flamazo and stock up on popsicles.

Oh, my gosh. Is this one Oreo?

Yeah, but I didn't get you an Oreo. Coffee?

Yes.

And chocolate.

They had chocolate this time. Well, today is the best day ever. Do they all fit the outfit? Should we get more?

We could have gotten more, but no, I think we should wait.

So we're about to fill up our tank for the first time in Mexico. And everything I've read online says that diesel is more expensive in Mexico than it is in the U.S. but before leaving, we paid 657 per gallon. So if it's more expensive than that, it's going to be very impressive. One very big difference between driving in Mexico and. And driving in the U.S. is that in the U.S. if you see a yellow light, it's usually like, three to five seconds long. And, you know, you usually speed up to get through it, so you don't hit the red light.

It's red.

Jeez.

I'm sorry. I feel like you're mad at me for telling you not to go on a red light. Don't shake your head at me.

I don't think I shook my head.

Yes, you did. Replay.

Wow. People just got the real deal right there. As I was saying here, instead of a long yellow light, they have a flashing green light, and then they have a yellow light that lasts for about half a second, and then it turns red. I don't know if this is diesel. Yes. Okay, gracias.

Diesel in Mexico is 2159 per liter, so it's 81 pesos per gallon.

Oh, it's so much cheaper. If Kara did her math correctly.

Not likely.

I'm pretty sure this guy is gonna fill up my tank for me, but he's just standing there. How do you say excuse me in Spanish? Pardon sounds French.

Pardone.

Sounds friends.

Hey, Siri, how do you say excuse me in Spanish? In Spanish? Excuse me.

I was right the first time.

Those guys are juggling fire at the intersection.

Wow.

Perfecto.

1138 pesos.

Easy enough. Okay, we have a full gas tank, full fridge, full bellies, and it is finally time to leave Ensenada. According to the GPS, we have five hours and 27 minutes of driving. And according to my watch, we have about five and A half hours of daylight left. Everyone says you shouldn't drive after dark in Baja, and I don't think it's fear of, like, people. I think it's more dangers of potholes, speed bumps, and cows. So the goal is to make it to our campsite before dark.

Dedicated to a clean shot. Much better. We're currently driving from one coast to the other across the peninsula, and we've only been in the car for about 30 minutes, and the landscape is already completely changed. All of a sudden, we are surrounded by mountains with these giant boulders. When we were planning this trip, I was picturing enjoying the coastline the whole time, and I did not even think about the mountainous part of Mexico.

All right, we are just approaching our first military checkpoint. Kara made it out of the bathroom just in time only to get Gracias.

Did he tell you to go?

Yeah, you just waved me through.

Well, that's shocking.

Got my heart rate up a little bit.

Yep. What do we do here?

It just feels wrong to pass a military vehicle.

They're going slow.

All right, truck's going for it.

Following him. Oh, he got a wave. Should I wave?

Yeah. Hello.

He waved back, and I think he smiled.

Military checkpoint number two.

K's not in the bathroom this time. We're already off to a better start.

Were they selling snacks?

Yeah.

Dos Personas out. Hey. Okay.

No problem. Yeah.

Kind of smells like a cigarette in here now. So far, we're two for two on not getting checked on our tourist visa. That took us an extra hour and a half.

We are still a very good ways away from where we hoped to end up tonight. It's starting to get dark, but thankfully, it looks like there's a lot of camping options. We're just driving down the coast, and every few miles, there's another sign advertising camping.

I think we're gonna be able to find something.

There were a lot of other campgrounds back there that did not require leaving the basement. We have a right left option. Google maps really wants me to go right.

I mean, that's where it looks like all the action is.

Yeah.

But, like, what are all these characters? They don't really.

These are campers who never made it out. This is interest.

She just said, drive over the hill and we can pay on the way out.

That's trusting.

All right. Can we make it over the hill?

We're up and we are alone.

Left looks very bad.

How do we feel about this?

I haven't felt any reason why we should feel unsafe.

I guess we'll just go park by One of these pilots this back here.

And we'll call it a night.

I don't know who recommended this spot and I can't remember why we're here, but at some point as I was reading a blog or something on the Internet, someone said they had a good experience here. So I had in my head this is where we needed to end up. And we passed up a lot of places where we could have slept directly on the beach. And now we have the sand dune that we're on right there separating our van from the ocean. I mean, it's not too bad.

We have nobody to like, vibe off of.

I think it was really just an expectations thing. This wasn't really it.

This is pretty sweet. Look, we have this whole bay all to ourselves.

We have zero Internet out here. So the only thing we have to do this morning is sit up here in the sunshine and sip our coffee. It's really nice to be forced to slow down.

We were a little unsure about this place last night when we got here and nobody else was around. But this morning, getting to wake up and have it all to ourselves, it's pretty awesome.

Okay.

Today we have about a three and a half hour drive to what is supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in all of Baja.

Back on the road. Yeah, we've just connected with Highway 1. So whether we would have chosen the Pacific Road or the Gulf Road, this is where we would have ended up. It's just been barren land with cactuses and boulders and mountains and dirt and sands.

That sign just said 140km until we get to gas.

Do we have enough?

Wow.

Wow. We have just entered what I am calling the Valley of the cactuses. Cacti. Cactuses.

We don't have Internet so we can't Google it.

This is without a doubt the highest concentration of cacti I've ever seen in my entire life. We decided to have a little picnic on the roof.

It's only 10 in the morning, but I've decided it's guac o' clock somewhere.

Also, this massive thing of guacamole only cost $2 at the store.

Yesterday this would have been at least $8 at Whole Foods.

Two people have honked at us. I don't know if they're nice honks or like you need to get out of here honks. Hopefully nice. We just wanted to sit up here and enjoy this landscape for a minute. Like this. This is so cool. And I wanted some guacamole. This gave me an excuse to eat it.

Well, that was fun. Back on the road.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. What are these, wild horses maybe.

There are five horses just running through this field alongside our van. Wow. Do you see him bucking? He was kicking his back legs up in the air.

This is the most beautiful experience of my life.

Look at that.

Oh, my gosh. I wish they would have come closer. We have guacamole.

And that is why they tell you not to drive at night in Mexico.

Wow.

This is awesome.

What a view. So we read about this place right on the edge of town, but it feels like we're in the middle of nowhere. We haven't passed any cars out here. We're officially on a dirt road, and I'm pretty sure you just find a spot and call it home. Oh, what does that say? Welcome. Welcome to La Gringa. According to the Internet, it's paradise. But it seems like people have differing opinions on how easy it is to get there. Some people are like, oh, you totally need a 4x4.4. Even my 4x4 got stuck. And other people are like, any car could get here, no problem.

This could be a huge mistake or it could be a huge win. All right, let's go check this one.

All right. You seem confident.

I seem confident that we're going to try and go that way.

Okay.

I think what we should do is we should both get out and walk up here and make the decision together.

Fair enough.

It's happening. Let's do this.

All right. We're in agreement that this isn't a horrible idea.

Yeah. Should I get out so there's less weight?

I really need to turn around.

All right.

We totally got this.

Believe in yourself only. Are we driving on the beach for the first time, but we're doing it backwards. You're good.

You got it. We're doing it.

That feels pretty flat. Home sweet home.

How we doing this?

This is exactly what I pictured when I pictured driving our van down.

Hey.

This is amazing.

This is amazing.

This has to be our most beautiful campsite yet. The only thing that would make this better is if there was surf. Wow.

I can't believe we're here.

So on this beach, there's a camper way down there, then just us, and then over here on the other side, you have one, two, three other campers.

This is nuts.

Not in a hurry to go anywhere. See it? Yeah. Whoa, there's two.

All right, I'm gonna whip us up a quick snack for lunch. I cannot believe we're having peanut butter banana tortillas for Lunch. But we needed something quick and simple because one dirty way past lunchtime and Nate has some big plans for us this afternoon. We got you quick.

I don't get a whole banana. I'm gonna open another one. Why didn't you put one banana in one? It broke. One banana in the other.

Adult sprinkles. This is actually such a great idea.

Now you come around to it.

Lunch is served.

We're definitely doing these again. Price is amazing. I could eat that every day for lunch for three weeks, no problem. Yeah.

Got it. In the last year, we have done a lot of crazy physical challenges, but none of them scare me more than what we have coming up in less than than two months. I'm the one that signs us up for these things, and normally I'm super excited, but this is me facing my biggest fear. I'm not going to go into too much detail now, except to say that we've been told in order to complete it, we need to be able to swim 90 minutes in open water without stopping. And we need some really cool goggles. I haven't worn goggles like these since I was a kid jumping in a swimming pool. Since we can't surf, we couldn't think of a better place to go on our first practice to swim. Today we're going to figure out how long can we swim without stopping with no training. Yeah.

I would like to add that not only have we never trained, but, like, we don't swim.

I swam laps in a pool once when I was in high school.

Wish us luck going on a swim.

Are you okay?

Let's just say we have a long ways to go.

That was nuts. At first, I really felt like I was kind of panicking, like I couldn't breathe.

You just started swimming straight out into the ocean. I was like, what is she doing out there?

I was panicking.

We lasted for 15 minutes, and now I have the full body shakes and a brain freeze.

Swimming back against the waves. Anytime I come up and get a breath, it would, like, splash my face. I like.

I can feel myself, like, shaking the camera.

Good morning. This beach is almost perfect, but it's missing two necessities, water and Internet. So today is going to be a bit of a life admin day to find both of those things. Normally, not having Internet for a few days wouldn't be a big deal, but we didn't know we weren't going to have Internet. And I was supposed to be on three business phone calls yesterday. They haven't checked in with our family in a While who are kind of on high alert with us driving our van to Mexico. So we just need to let some people know that we're okay. And then we need water for obvious reasons, Mainly coffee.

All right. We got out of our first sandy beach spot no problem. Which is great news, because hopefully there will be lots more beach camping in our future. I'm so excited. Whoa. Look at those big birds on top of that cactus.

I just connected my phone to the Internet for the first time in three days.

Let's see if anyone's panicking. Oh, no.

They're panicking. Call home. I'm a little worried. This is my dad. How are you, sweetie? Please call. Then my sister said, now dad has me worried. Oh, I feel so bad. Wow, this place just keeps getting better. Avocado toast.

In one of those small world moments, we just happen to run into fellow YouTubers Drew and Brittany from Mr. & Mrs. Adventure at the cafe. They are van life pros and have been in Baja for the last three months, and they were nice enough to share a bunch of their favorite epic spots with.

Us. These two notches right here are, like, the most incredible canyons to go.

Up. So Nate spent all day replanning the rest of our trip here in Baja, and we can't wait to share this incredible adventure with.

You.

Aha. Get.

Out. What are you.

Doing?

Bugs don't bother me. Except for flies, because when you're sleeping at night, they're like.

So see if I can get it with vacuum.