Baja Day #1

This is the team that our church sent down to Baja this year.  This was D’s fourth time going, and my first.  We had a big team this year, 40+ people.  We built two houses and ran a VBS for the kids in Vincente Guerrero.

We rode down in four 14 passenger vans, plus two vans for another church from Northern California, Orchard Valley.  D was the navigator for our van, although our veteran driver Gerald, knew where he was going.  D was in charge of giving the driver the tolls.

We said goodbye to our kids in the parking lot.  We are so fortunate that they were able to stay with my parents for the week.

We left on Sunday, soon after our scheduled departure time of 8 a.m.  The ride was bumpy, and the back seats have no head support, so I started to feel carsick.  Fortunately, it was not too long before our first stop at a Costco in Ensenada.  I was able to get some Dramamine from “Dr.” Miles, and felt much better the rest of the way. 

The Costco food court was almost exactly the same as in the States.  D had our van’s food money and ordered hot dogs, and a pizza for us.  FYI, the exchange rates is about 12 pesos to a dollar.

One different thing is that they have mango slushies, which were very good and refreshing.

Our kids love mango, and they would have loved this drink!

We arrived at our base camp at around 3 p.m.

We received a short orientation and were told that the other group that was scheduled to be there cancelled.  We were happy, because that meant more room for us!  We picked out our beds, and unpacked our things.  About an hour later we were informed that it turned out that the group was in fact coming.  We had to consolidate rooms to make more room, and we ended up having to squeeze nine women into our cabin.  I ended up on a top bunk, but in the end it was fine. 

Here’s a picture of D’s room, to give you an idea of our sleeping quarters.

Here are some pictures of the IDT facility…

Kitchen

Dining Hall

Santiago’s—a small gift shop.

Bathroom facilities:

This policy took some getting used to!

For dinner, we went out to get tacos.

I ate one pork taco and one beef taco.  Both were good, but I especially enjoyed the pork, which they cut off a spit, as shown above.

D went across the street and Lynnus bought him a container of mango that was cut fresh in front of them.  I think this huge cup cost only around $2!  Again, the kids would have loved this.

Back at IDT, our leader Gerald had the kitchen staff make a special birthday cake for Pastor Curt of Orchard Valley.

Tres leches cake with fresh strawberries—yum!  We were well fed for the next day’s build!