BajaNomad - Who's got the earliest first hand Baja experience?

Who's got the earliest first hand Baja experience?

Cliffy - 5-17-2014 at 09:04 PM

I'll start it off-
My Mother was born in Norway and worked for the "Casa Vega" restaurant on Olvera Street in downtown LA in 1945 (I came around the next year:-) The owner, Mary Vega, was from TJ and had a home there and invited my Mother down. She went and forgot her Naturalization papers. When she tried to come back she was stopped at the border, No papers, no entry.
The next day they snuck her back in in the trunk of a car!

jimgrms - 5-18-2014 at 06:42 AM

In 1952 And the local police threw us in jail ,, ( a Went with a school friend his Dad and uncle on a fishing trip to San Felipe .where we were left to entertain ourselves ,While the adults fished. We were 13 years old ,and the cantinas sold us cervaza , and we got real drunk, so we got jailed the San Felipe jail in those days was a old panel truck with no windows or wheels .I learned early to not get smart with the law .

Barry A. - 5-18-2014 at 07:18 AM

Around 1948, while living in Coronado, my Mom (a Navy widow) often took me and my sister to TJ to the Jai Lai games (Palace), and to Caliente Race Track along with many of her friends. I have always loved TJ ever since.

Good and exciting times!

Barry

Osprey - 5-18-2014 at 08:18 AM

Me and my rascal buddies went to TJ because we had heard about the charming ladies who would take small amounts of money from gringo teens. It was a natural for me because back then (and now?) I would pay a dollar to see a monkey poop.

1953

[Edited on 5-18-2014 by Osprey]

durrelllrobert - 5-18-2014 at 08:38 AM

When I was 15 in 1952 my dad worked with a Mexican man who's brother was a TJ policeman and we were invited to a beach party at Rosarito that included roasting a whole steer.

My dads job was to bring down a trailer load of firewood and my mother and sister decided to sleep in the trailer under a tarp instead of on the beach. During the night the were awakened by several Mexican men shaking the trailer and making comments in Spanish about them.

They both started screaming and the TJ policeman, who was sleeping in his car next to the trailer, woke up and shot one of them. Him and my dad put the body in the trailer and drove down the road where they threw it over the cliff.

To me it was just like the wild west in the movies.

Cliffy - 5-18-2014 at 10:05 AM

bob it'll be hard to top that one

David K - 5-18-2014 at 10:27 AM

I was 7 in the summer of '65 and my dad bought a Jeep Wagoneer after hearing about the great fishing south of San Felipe and a Jeep was needed to get there. Gonzaga Bay was the first of a lifetime of Baja destinations. We drove the peninsula road (Tijuana-Cabo San Lucas) in 1966 and took the new ferry to Mazatlan from La Paz. Great memories and life changing events for me. When I got my license at 16, I took my first trip without parents... to Gonzaga Bay with many side trips. Great times. Viva Baja!

Cliffy - 5-18-2014 at 10:38 AM

Actually made my first trip south in about '74 when friends and I went to Gonzaga where one of them had a block house (room) on Papa's beach. Drove the cut from Mex 1 and pulled into a Federal Police road block about half way there at 11 PM at night. Wasn't expecting that. Lucky they didn't find the small handgun one of the idiots brought along.
Ate turtle dinner with Papa and family. Gave away balloons to all the kids running around Papa's that night.

durrelllrobert - 5-18-2014 at 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Cliffy
bob it'll be hard to top that one

Didn't mention that the next day was my first time to pass out from too much drinking. After several drinks of straight tequila from the bottle being passed around I switch to warm beer from a keg and then went in the water to cool off. Swallowed a bunch of salt water, puked and passed out coming back to the beach. Everyone thought it was funny and just left my lying there covered with sand and my own puke for several hours. :bounce:

Barry A. - 5-18-2014 at 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by durrelllrobert

Quote:

Originally posted by Cliffy
bob it'll be hard to top that one

Jeeeeezo, that experience would tend to make one more 'self-sufficient' in later life I suspect!!! :light:

Barry

David K - 5-18-2014 at 11:37 AM

Sounds like loads of fun Bob.

Baja is where memories are made and troubles forgotten!

DENNIS - 5-18-2014 at 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by durrelllrobert
Everyone thought it was funny and just left my lying there covered with sand and my own puke for several hours. :bounce:

And...you still wear that shirt. :lol:

sargentodiaz - 5-18-2014 at 12:02 PM

In high school, my buddies and I were into turning cars into hot rods or really spiffing them up with special paint jobs and interiors.

One of the best places in the world to get real leather tuck-and-roll interiors was TJ. We regularly went down there in 54-57 and I still remember leaving the pavement at the border and following a dirt road and crossing the river on a flat trestle bridge. Great beer and food but we always went back to the other side to spend the night in a cheap motel.

Never once suffered Moctazuma's Revenge.

sancho - 5-18-2014 at 03:03 PM

Not the earliest by a long shot, but a surf trip to Cuatro
Casas, '70 -'71, close to Camalu, bought lobster for $.50
a piece, speaking drinking and puking, snoozing in my '68
Chevy Van at San Miguel mid day after a few, then was
a beer called 3XXX. a couple buddies in the back, when I heard this
unmistakeable sound. one had turned over and puked all
over the other, brings back momories

Ateo - 5-18-2014 at 03:12 PM

Man, lots of puking stories. My first trip down was as a kid in 1983. Estero Beach. I saw my first female nipple/boob while I was peaking thru a hole in the wall of our rental, into the shower. In that shower was my friends' friend, the daughter of our pastor.

willardguy - 5-18-2014 at 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ateo
Man, lots of puking stories. My first trip down was as a kid in 1983. Estero Beach. I saw my first female nipple/boob while I was peaking thru a hole in the wall of our rental, into the shower. In that shower was my friends' friend, the daughter of our pastor.

holy nipple!

noserider - 5-18-2014 at 03:58 PM

It was about 1970, My Mom and Dad took My brothers and I to San Felipe to camp with a group of Friends, I was about 8 years old and while all of us Youngsters were wandering around We heard a lot of noise coming from the public shower area, We went in quietly and realized a Young couple were having sex in one of the stalls and apparently He was pretty good at it, We stayed out of sight and enjoyed the show , the seventies were a great time.

DocRey - 5-18-2014 at 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by willardguy

Quote:

holy nipple!

Cochino!

willardguy - 5-18-2014 at 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by noserider
It was about 1970, My Mom and Dad took My brothers and I to San Felipe to camp with a group of Friends, I was about 8 years old and while all of us Youngsters were wandering around We heard a lot of noise coming from the public shower area, We went in quietly and realized a Young couple were having sex in one of the stalls and apparently He was pretty good at it, We stayed out of sight and enjoyed the show , the seventies were a great time.

Luke from modern family. "whatever it was, looks like dad was winning!" :lol:

durrelllrobert - 5-18-2014 at 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Barry A.

Quote:

Originally posted by durrelllrobert

Quote:

Originally posted by Cliffy
bob it'll be hard to top that one

Jeeeeezo, that experience would tend to make one more 'self-sufficient' in later life I suspect!!! :light:

Barry

Yep, I learned that you should never drink (sea water that is) :spingrin:

BajaRat - 5-18-2014 at 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by durrelllrobert
When I was 15 in 1952 my dad worked with a Mexican man who's brother was a TJ policeman and we were invited to a beach party at Rosarito that included roasting a whole steer.

My dads job was to bring down a trailer load of firewood and my mother and sister decided to sleep in the trailer under a tarp instead of on the beach. During the night the were awakened by several Mexican men shaking the trailer and making comments in Spanish about them.

They both started screaming and the TJ policeman, who was sleeping in his car next to the trailer, woke up and shot one of them. Him and my dad put the body in the trailer and drove down the road where they threw it over the cliff.

To me it was just like the wild west in the movies.

We're cool though, Right Bob :wow:

1965, three years old with my cool parents in a 58 VW camper van.

dtbushpilot - 5-18-2014 at 11:44 PM

Went to TJ with my neighbors when I was about 12 or so (1965?). They were a large Mexican family and obviously knew their way around and had family there. Looking back it is pretty remarkable that my parents would let the neighbors take me to a foreign country to "have a good time" which as I recall everybody did. Ate tacos and "pepitas", bought fireworks, had a great time that I still remember (don't ask me what I had for breakfast).
Went back to TJ around 1969 with a friend that had ran a tree branch through his Jeep radiator. We dropped it off at a radiator shop and had a beer at the bar next door while they fixed it. I remember that the bill was $1.50 and we had to wait around while the proprietor's son went down the road to get us change for 2 bucks.

JZ - 5-19-2014 at 12:17 AM

1981. Didn't make it back on my own until the late 90's.

chuckie - 5-19-2014 at 04:33 AM

1956

bajabuddha - 5-19-2014 at 04:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by chuckie
1956

YABUT..... travelling in a fallopian tube doesn't count. :tumble:

chuckie - 5-19-2014 at 05:41 AM

That's just YOUR opinion, Dude.....Actually was in the US Navy..every weekend in Baja...Made it as far as the Comondus in a 49 Mercury...

elgatoloco - 5-19-2014 at 09:48 AM

My first trip probably included some puking. Its a bit fuzzy. My parents bought a house on the beach in 1960 when I was 2. My dad is 89 and his father would take him fishing to La Mision and Salisipudes when he was just a boy and he continued to travel down for fishing, diving, surfing. Now he just goes down for the margaritas, golf and sunsets.

San Felipe

desertcpl - 5-19-2014 at 10:02 AM

1953 on the beach in San Felipe,, which would be now Rubens Camp

I was 9 at the time,, my father was in the rear of the pix,

ken san fliepe 53.gif - 39kB

DavidE - 5-19-2014 at 10:24 AM

Who's got the earliest Baja experience?

That's easy!

His name was

"Oog"

chuckie - 5-19-2014 at 11:33 AM

And his wifes name?

durrelllrobert - 5-19-2014 at 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by chuckie
And his wifes name?

Oooga (the inventor of the Model T horn?) :lol:

durrelllrobert - 5-19-2014 at 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by desertcpl
1953 on the beach in San Felipe,, which would be now Rubens Camp

I was 9 at the time,, my father was in the rear of the pix,

Back when taking of Tortuga was still legal?

bajamedic - 5-19-2014 at 11:48 AM

Sorry, I am too young to have the "first", but for me it was 1965, I was 10 and we went to San Felipe. My father and Uncle helped to build a small church there as my father worked for a fairly large materials supplier in San Jose, CA. The local contractors would keep my fathers "Mexico" stash well supplied with whatever was needed at the time, they were very generous in purchasing things on my dads list and then just handing it over for him to deliver and build with. For me, it was a great time with the local boys and one really special girl in town, her eyes and smile captured my heart for quite some time. The tide pools, fire works on the beach, a major sunburn and buying warm coke's from the bar in town still bring a smile to my face when I think about my time there. Watching the locals help my uncle launch his boat with an old army truck that had to go so far out to get enough water to float the boat off of the trailer was also quite a thrill. Bringing home my first tiny switchblade knife/letter opener, running through and exploring a small dirt street town with my new friends, being introduced to fish head soup and admiring the happy and generous people that had so little and yet had so much more than I. JH

Hook - 5-19-2014 at 12:08 PM

My first time was not so exciting, really. My family and I camped with some neighbors at Cantamar. We brought a sand rail down and had a great time in the dunes just south of there. I was 16.

On one of the sand rail expeditions w/o the parents, we bought beers (horrible, warm XXX beer in cans) from the family that controlled access to the dunes from the free road side. They were 15 cents. We drank em and drove around drunk in the dunes. Later, we met some girls who were also from SoCal and we did some necking at night in the dunes.

We also went to a lobster fisherman's house in the general area where Puerto Nuevo eventually grew into a big lobster to-do. I still remember that a complete meal of all the fried lobster you can eat, with beans, rice and tortillas was 5.00 US. Seems like we could never eat more than about two whole lobsters. I imagine the lobsters were much larger then but I also discovered that I could probably eat five times that if they are only steamed. Deep fried was delicious but overwhelming.

We sat out on a picnic table on the guys back porch and there was a fridge full of beers for sale, too. We were "allowed" a beer. Whoo-hoo, Mexico!! Where everyone comes to cut loose!!

Hook - 5-19-2014 at 12:10 PM

Uh-oh, pic size violation. Someone is going to hear about it. :lol:

Mexitron - 5-19-2014 at 12:33 PM

1964 I was 6 yrs old and crammed into a pickup with a bunch of Girl Scouts ( :biggrin:

) going to an orphanage in Ensenada. But didn't start really doing Baja until 1975.

DavidE - 5-19-2014 at 12:50 PM

Venturing south of El Rosario, before 1973 was pretty much a boundary point, or south of San Felipe / Puertecitos.

Looking back, not many of the streets in Ensenada were paved. A thin, badly poured ribbon of asphalt connected Ensenada to (?) Camalu?

If you spent time in Baja California Sur, the territory not the state, that's quite a few years ago.

bajamedic - 5-19-2014 at 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hook
Uh-oh, pic size violation. Someone is going to hear about it. :lol:

I still have not mastered that skill, but I am working on it. JH :spingrin:

[Edited on 5-19-2014 by bajamedic]

mulegemichael - 5-19-2014 at 02:35 PM

first time as a brash young navy man looking for the famous "donkey show" in tijuana..that would be 1965...never found the show but found lots of other stuff...then returned in 1970 with a buddy hitchhiking...we ended up on the beach at punta banda, built a scrabbled together driftwood shelter and stayed 10 months...met tons of locals, drank their beer, smoked their pot, made out with their senoritas...overall just a wonderful chunk of time in my life.....and i just keep going back now 49 years later.

durrelllrobert - 5-19-2014 at 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bajabuddha

YABUT..... travelling in a fallopian tube doesn't count. :tumble:

durrelllrobert - 5-19-2014 at 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mulegemichael
first time as a brash young navy man looking for the famous "donkey show" in tijuana..that would be 1965...never found the show but found lots of other stuff...then returned in 1970 with a buddy hitchhiking...we ended up on the beach at punta banda, built a scrabbled together driftwood shelter and stayed 10 months...met tons of locals, drank their beer, smoked their pot, made out with their senoritas...overall just a wonderful chunk of time in my life.....and i just keep going back now 49 years later.

Don't know about '65, it might have been gone, but in the 50s the donkey show was at the Blue Fox, about 1/2 block off Revolution.

Cliffy - 5-19-2014 at 09:07 PM

I was told in 63 that $15 could get a high school kid a very fun night in Rosarito Beach with American girls ! I was making $1.60/hr