| Back in 1992, Robert Stark and I were looking
for new, more exciting, and more adventurous places to go in Baja. We were
also looking for someplace close, where we could travel to easily on a
3-day weekend.
After scouring through our Baja book and Baja map, we found an interesting place. Located off of Highway 3 just 16 miles southeast of Ensenada, is the turnoff to "Agua Caliente". The road to Agua Caliente is another 6 miles of fairly easy hard-packed dirt. Now, the first thing that crossed our minds was, "Agua Caliente---that's Spanish for 'hot water'! We found hot springs!" Having been to Canon de Guadalupe before, we expected to find some lovely hot springs in the middle of nowhere. We made the trip in March of 1992. A week before, it had rained fairly heavily down there, so the area around the road was fairly wet. The scenery was very nice, with green plants, and livestock everywhere. We saw a few roadrunners, goats, and a ton of cows along the way. There are a few farms on this route, but little else in the way of civilization. Upon arriving at Agua Caliente, we found what we would describe as a "rustic" hotel, with a very nice swimming pool. A young man approached us, and we asked him how much to stay at the hotel. This man thought, and thought, and thought. It was apparent to us, he was thinking up the price in his head. He came back to us, "$65 a night". WHAT???? We were flabbergasted. Nice hotels in Ensenada are not that expensive, with much nicer amenities than this place. Since staying at the hotel was not an option, we asked how much he charged to camp. "$20 a night, per person". Well, as you could imagine, we decided to stay at Ensenada that night. Before we left Agua Caliente, we did check the pool. The water in one section was cool, but there was one section which was very warm. And so, we had found a new place - a rather nice, but much too expensive, Agua Caliente. |
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