I Want To Be In Baja

I’m sorry I haven’t written in a long time.  Due the media publishing so much negative information, I felt like things had just gotten bogged down and decided to hold off.  This has not stopped my traveling to EL Dorado and just to let people know, although business has felt the impact by the economy, people are still taking one day at a time and it is still a wonderful place to be.  I went down in June, July, and August, and although the days are warm, it does cool off in the evening and  one can be entertained just by going out at night to enjoy the stars in the  sky.

Building continues at El Dorado ranch and I will come back from time to time to update progress at El Dorado Ranch.  If anyone ever has any questions, you can always e-mail me at nancy@ICleanUglyCredit.com (my US job) and I will be happy to assist you.

I really enjoyed Dick’s story on his July 18th post on his San Felipe Talk blog. He was relating his experiences of visiting the marina at San Felipe just as the crab fishermen came in, and buying some very fresh, and very cheap crab! This was a story I could relate to from personal experience.

Years ago, my wife and I made friends with a lobster fisherman on the south coast of Devon in the UK. He took us out at first light and we helped haul in the lobster pots, re-bait them and set them back again. On that trip we caught a few lobsters and several crab. That evening we had fresh crab for dinner - being a seafood lover anyway, fresh crab has always been one of my favorites - even better than lobster in my opinion.

I knew the Sea of Cortez around San Felipe is famous for its shrimp but I did not know they fished for crab there as well. These particular crab are blue crab and Dick picked up 19 crabs for the grand sum of 150 pesos (less than $12! USD) - that, my friend, is a bargain! As Dick says, back in Virginia, he paid $30 for just 6 crabs. Not that I need another excuse to go to San Felipe and El Dorado Ranch but, next trip, guess where I will be heading!

I was listening to some of the chat on the El Dorado Ranch Yahoo Group this week and one of the subjects that came up was the rules governing what you could or could not bring into Mexico with you. There seemed to be some confusion over the Mexican customs rules and a couple of people had their goods confiscated at the border because they weren’t aware of the regulations. One thing that came out of the conversation, though, was a very useful website resource that will answer all of your questions, which I thought I would share with you so you don’t have the same problems. So if you want to know what you have to do when crossing the border, what you can bring in duty free, what items you need to declare, what goods are prohibited, the rules on temporary vehicle importation, and so on this will be a valuable resource for you - knowledge is power, as they say!

Click Here - Mexican Border Crossings - Passengers Arriving By Land

And, happy traveling!

San Felipe, Baja - One of the Baja resorts to have suffered a 75% drop in tourism revenue this year.

If anyone still has concerns over traveling to Mexico in general, or Baja in particular, I would direct you to read a new report published this week called  Baja California, Mexico: Impact of U.S. Media, an Analysis by Scott Hanning and Jeffrey Werner, Emerson Strategic Communication Group. Baja, which relies heavily on tourism dollars from U.S. visitors, has suffered a decline of 75% in their revenue this year - a subject we have visited many times. The analysis makes clear that fear of drug cartel violence, and later of  the H1N1 flu virus, has kept huge numbers of visitors away.  What is also made clear is that these fears were wholly unjustified and unnecessarily overblown by the U.S. media.

“One critical fact remains clear, however: there is no evidence or history of tourists being harmed by cartel-related violence. Further, the threat of so-called “spillover” violence into the border states that spawned a great deal of coverage in the pre-April period has failed to materialize.  Nor has Mexico become the failed state so vigorously predicted earlier in the year.  None of these facts are actively reported to the American public.”

If the reports of drug cartel violence are still a concern for you, please read this report. I would also venture to suggest that you might like to think about what other stories in the press might be exaggerated - and why.  The fear of North Korean missiles reaching Hawaii is the latest one that springs to mind. There are factions within this country that have a vested interest in keeping people  fearful - don’t buy into their lies. It is you who ends up being the loser if you do.

For those of you connected to Facebook - and who are also fans of El Dorado Ranch - there is a Facebook fan page just for you. There are only 29 members on there at the moment - I rather suspect that reflects the the numbers of El Dorado Ranchers on Facebook rather than the number of El Dorado Ranch fans! Also, rather disappointingly, it is just a fan page. There are a few photos but it has no real information on there about the El Dorado Ranch project, or even any website links. The powers that be at El Dorado Ranch should seriously consider starting a Group page on Facebook for El Dorado Ranch - it would allow more conversation and interaction between members, and between members and El Dorado Ranch staff. Not only would it be a much better way to promote the project but it would also be a great source of insider knowledge for people looking at moving or retiring there. Just a thought.

If you really want to get a feel of just what life would be like if you were to retire down to San Felipe - maybe you like the idea but are still a bit on the fence  - you may want to read about Kathy’s experience at http://sanfelipetalk.com. She has lived  at El Dorado Ranch for just over six years now and has just started to write about that experience in her own blog, which started in May. It covers a mix of local news and happenings and her own personal insights, and will certainly give you a good flavor of what life is like there. I very much look forward to seeing how her blog progresses - for my part, I would like to see a few more pictures on the site but, in the meantime , here is one of mine - a picture of one of the houses located near the golf course that I took on my first trip down there. Not bad eh?

Ah ha! Well, I may not have had much luck in terms of videos of El Dorado Ranch (see previous post), but I did discover in my searches that there is a Flickr Group for people to upload their pictures of El Dorado Ranch.  We always try to include pictures of both El Dorado and the surrounding area on our blog, but for anyone thinking of going to take a look for themselves, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have an additional source - it all helps to get an idea of the place. And, although photos can’t really do justice to this little slice of heaven, it at least gives enough idea in helping to decide whether it is worth the trip (Hint: it is!).

I include one of the pictures from the site just to give you an idea of some of the great properties to be seen there (with thanks to jcozens).

The El Dorado Ranch Flickr site can be seen by clicking here.

I have noticed that one thing that is severely lacking when it comes to information about El Dorado Ranch is video. I have searched YouTube a few times hoping to find something that really shows off the the beauty of the location and the extent of its wonderful facilities, but there is really nothing out there that fits the bill. However, I was checking out the blueroadrunner.com website to see what was new and they have a whole new section dedicated to videos of San Felipe and the surrounding area -
http://blueroadrunner.com/sfvideos.htm - many of which have been gleened from YouTube, but it is very useful to have a single resource where you can find all these videos in one place - well done Blueroadrunner! In saying that though, there are still no videos of El Dorado Ranch itself. I am sure that a few home-grown videos of the place would be of enormous value to anyone contemplating going on one of the regular El Dorado Ranch tours (read about our experience here). So if anyone is planning on making the trip and wants to take some video, or who knows of such a video and can send us the link, we would love to show it on our blog!