November 6th - Ensenada
A rest day for us before the start tomorrow morning.
A beautiful sunrise over the mountains surrounding Ensenada. We have the official signing-on for the event from 11am and then later this afternoon a briefing by John Brown followed by a dinner at the hotel.
We signed on and collected our stickers for the car, road books (3), a Panamericana document case and the number plates showing our event number 19.
We then drove about three miles into Ensenada to change money and attempt to get a Mexican SIM card for my mobile phone. We were lucky with the SIM card because as we were trying to explain to the girl serving us in the Telcel mobile phone shop, Al one of the Mexican members of the HERO team came into the shop, and he helped us to buy the SIM. So, now I have a Mexican phone number for the rest of the trip. Even with the very high cost of calls in Mexico it's still cheaper than the international rates Orange charge!
Off to the bank and our first experience of Mexican banking. Dozens of people waiting to be served at the bank! We were given a number and had to wait till our number was called. Twenty minutes later and we were changing US dollars into Mexican Pesos at about 11 to the dollar.
We then returned to the hotel as the first of the group who had their cars in the containers at Tijuana arrived at the hotel. Over the next four hours everyone arrived. It was our first opportunity to meet old friends who were with us on the Inca Trail (2001), as well as from the China/Tibet tour (2004) and South Africa (2005).
The day finished with a meal at the hotel accompanied by Mexican music. Tomorrow the Panamericana starts and everyone I've talked to, can't wait to get going.
More photos will be posted in the next couple of days.
A beautiful sunrise over the mountains surrounding Ensenada. We have the official signing-on for the event from 11am and then later this afternoon a briefing by John Brown followed by a dinner at the hotel.
We signed on and collected our stickers for the car, road books (3), a Panamericana document case and the number plates showing our event number 19.
We then drove about three miles into Ensenada to change money and attempt to get a Mexican SIM card for my mobile phone. We were lucky with the SIM card because as we were trying to explain to the girl serving us in the Telcel mobile phone shop, Al one of the Mexican members of the HERO team came into the shop, and he helped us to buy the SIM. So, now I have a Mexican phone number for the rest of the trip. Even with the very high cost of calls in Mexico it's still cheaper than the international rates Orange charge!
Off to the bank and our first experience of Mexican banking. Dozens of people waiting to be served at the bank! We were given a number and had to wait till our number was called. Twenty minutes later and we were changing US dollars into Mexican Pesos at about 11 to the dollar.
We then returned to the hotel as the first of the group who had their cars in the containers at Tijuana arrived at the hotel. Over the next four hours everyone arrived. It was our first opportunity to meet old friends who were with us on the Inca Trail (2001), as well as from the China/Tibet tour (2004) and South Africa (2005).
The day finished with a meal at the hotel accompanied by Mexican music. Tomorrow the Panamericana starts and everyone I've talked to, can't wait to get going.
More photos will be posted in the next couple of days.
posted by Tim at 4:47 PM
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