So this next little bit is of my Rosarito road trip I took back in May 2008. I absolutely love love love road trips. I think the best part about it (beside traveling out of town) is being confined to a small space listening to music hours on end and the connection that happens between myself and my traveling partner. I have never driven across the U.S. border so the whole experience for me was pretty awesome. I don't want to bore you to tears, but I do want to share my experience with you, so I'll try to keep the story short. My partner and I stayed in this nice resort in Rosarito for over a week, but we tried to do 'non touristy' stuff. We opted for the $2 fish tacos (almost on a daily basis) from a tiny taco stand down the way rather than eating food we could get any day of the week from home. Oh wait. I guess one of my photos would give away that I'm not being completely honest. We did eat once with the tourists. And that was our last day there. Let's see, it was half a pound (maybe a pound?) of fresh lobster, rice, beans, chips & salsa, and a margarita for fifteen bucks a person. Probably the best fifteen dollars I have ever spent on a meal.
Rewinding back to midway through on our trip. I had really wanted to go grocery and supply shopping at a local store, and make a big donation to a local orphanage. So we did that. We loaded up on all kinds of staple foods, and daily necessities. I had talked to the people at the front desk of our resort asking if they knew of an orphanage nearby where we can drop off our donations and visit the kids. They had told me that they couldn't really give us directions, but that they can put me in touch with a woman who could help us. Laura was her name. And she is someone that I will never forget. She was an incredible American woman who had made Rosarito her home over 20 years ago, and she spoke of Rosarito with such pride. Incredible. She runs an AIDS hospice down there, and she knows all about the orphanages and is pretty involved with the very unfortunate parts of Rosarito. The Rosarito hills. Now living in the hills here in the U.S., is quite opposite of living in the hills in Rosarito. Anyway, keeping on topic. We met with Laura at the resort with our rental car loaded with tons of supplies ready to take to the orphanage. Laura had told us that they orphanage does not need any clothes cause they have warehouses full of clothes for the children, that over 50 churches donate to. What? 50 churches?
Until this day, I don't really know if this was Laura's intent, but the day took a turn and we never even made it to the orphanage. She had told us that she needs to make a quick stop to visit a family that goes to a hospital she volunteers at periodically. Okay, fine with us. We have nothing to do, and we are on her clock now. Didn't bother us in the least. She drove her car ahead of us, and warned us that we should not be driving the rental car where we were headed. She could not have been more right. This family lived deep in the hills, where there is no pavement, and actually really scary to drive in a ford focus. (Oh, did I mention that the car company had forbidden us to take the car across the border in the first place, so we gave them the silent finger, took the car anyway, and without insurance) I was sure about 3 times that we were going to go over the edge with this little plastic car. I had to trust that my partner knew what he was doing, and keep my mouth shut. Well we finally reached the home where this family lives. I'll try to paint the picture of what this place looked like:
The houses have to steal electricity, cause they cannot afford it. And often times the electric companies drive through cutting the cable to their electricity. So many of the families do not have electricity. There is no running water there either, so the only water that they bathe, wash, and drink is out of a big red barrel that they usually have outside of their homes collecting rain water. They have 1 church in the 'village' and the church will try to help the community with free medical services, and building some kind of basic structure for the lucky family of the year. So this family that we went to visit was a family of 7 (mom, pops, and 5 children) They live and sleep in 1 room, and when I say one room, I mean ONE room. That was probably the size of my living room, which I'm betting is smaller than your living room. They have a non working fridge, they don't have a shower, or even a bathroom, or yes, I almost forgot, a kitchen. When I heard that dad is out every night starting a fire to cook on and keep the family warm, and I saw how they slept, my.heart.sank. Ah, it's even putting alligator tears in my eyes thinking about it now. It wasn't like seeing the homeless in SF. This hit me in the center of my heart. This was the sweetest family I have ever seen. I looked over at my partner, and could tell he was immediately effected by all of this, as was I. I think without question, we knew that this family could use all the supplies we originally intended to go to the orphanage. 50 churches? OVER 50 churches?? something told me that the food and supplies would last a hell of a lot longer and would have actually made a difference for this family. We as we are grabbing all the supplies out of trunk of the car I lost it, I fell apart, and crumbled. I was tyring my hardest not to show that I felt 'sorry' for this family. I tried hiding behind the open trunk for a minute to collect myself. Just as I thought, 'okay, this is good, I'm okay' I saw momma bear start crying. So my strength didn't last that long. I am the type if I see ANYONE cry, I start crying myself. I think it's contagious and I'm easily susceptible to it. So we had this big crying circle going. (sounds funny now, huh? but it totally wasn't at the time)
It was the most humbling experience of my life. Of my life. I was effected. bigtime.
After spending some time with this family, Laura, my partner and I headed out, and Laura treated us for dinner at her favorite restaurant.
The next day she came to visit us, and gave us a behind the scenes tour of the resort we were staying at (she had worked there for several years) and she even pulled a few strings to offer us an amazing spa package for very little cost. I think we may have also made an impression on her, because even after that, the next day she called us and invited us to attend a formal dinner with the city of Rosarito (or something like that) but we did not accept her invitation because we only had little time left and we wanted to....oh, drink beer.
You are probably falling out of your chair right now, so I guess I'll share what was supposed to be the point of this blog in the first place; my photos.
I'm sorry if you feel like you are getting gyped with a terribly long story and not very many photos, but I'm sure you can deal.
First things first.I think we grabbed some beer before we even checked in.
This was our sunset.
This was our sunset.Since we've all seen beer and sunsets before, I want to post my favorite part of the trip.
This was taken right outside of Rosarito 
The village
The big red tub near the front door is where they store their water.
If you look near the top right of the photo you will see the church
And our last meal of the trip, that I had mentioned earlier. Our big 'ol lobsters....
These little guys were damn tasty. I tried to pose them after I was done eating, but I wasn't patient enough to start clicking away when our meals came out fresh. This is probably why you are not seeing much else on the plate.
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