In 1994 during the weekend before the American Chemical Society (ACS) Meeting in San Diego, Macrine and I took a sightseeing excursion to Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico from San Diego. There are two ways to visit Ensenada from San Diego. One is by bus and the other by sea. We took the sea route ( about 70 minutes). There was plenty of time for shopping and sightseeing. The tour took only about 11 hours total. We purchased a few Mexican souvenirs( Indian blankets) and enjoyed a typical Mexican lunch. I did not show any symptoms of sea sickness in the incoming sea trip, but at the return trip, the sea was choppy and I throw up. I swear, I will never take another cruise because of that experience, inspite of Macrine's urging to take another cruise ( perhaps to Alaska during summer).
Ensenada (full name: Ensenada De Todos Santos, which means "Cove of all Saints" in English), or Port of Ensenada for its port, is the third-largest city in the Mexican state of Baja California. It is located 116 km (about 70 miles) south of Tijuana. The city had a 2005 census population of 260,075, with the municipality having 413,481.
Ensenada is also the municipal seat of Ensenada Municipality, one of the five into which the state is divided. Ensenada is locally referred as La Cenicienta del Pacífico (The Cinderella of the Pacific).
Located in the Bahía de Todos Santos — an inlet of the Pacific Ocean — Ensenada is an important commercial and fishing port as well as a cruise ship port of call. There is also a navy base, an army base and a military airfield, which functions as an airport of entry into Mexico.
The city is backed by small mountain ranges. Due to its location on the Pacific Ocean and Mediterranean latitude, the weather tends to be mild year-round. Although the winter rain season is short and the area is prone to prolonged droughts, Ensenada sits in the heart of a wine country that is widely regarded as the best in Mexico and the Americas with the Napa Valley in California. It is said that the first vitis vinifera made it to the Peninsula (specifically to the San Ignacio Mission) in 1703, when Jesuit Padre Juan de Ugarte planted the first vineyards there.
Note: This is No.12 (Part 2) of a series of article on places that Macrine and I had visited outside the US since 1960.
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