A tuna salad lunch may not be what you are imagining when it’s late fall, all the leaves have left the deciduous trees and it’s a cold and chilly day in the mountains of southern California. But if you are journeying on a Baja California road trip this can be the perfect picnic snack! Pull over on the side of the toll road 1D and inhale this tasty treat along the shoreline of Clam Beach. Let your adventure pup run free. Every beach in Baja is a dog beach! Unlike those uppity southern California public spaces, it’s a dog-gone great idea to holiday with your pup in Baja California!
At our home back in the mountains of southern Califonia, the low last week got down to ten degrees. Do you see why I yearn to relax poolside by a Baja infinity pool now? A Baja California road trip is a great way to get away somewhere warmer before winter really hits.
A dog gone good time, mostly
However, trying to find dog-friendly accommodations in Baja can be terribly frustrating. The amazing Airbnb we stayed at in Calafia last November has sold this past winter. We had to find a new option for our dog-gone good times in Baja. Unfortunately for us our Airbnb accommodation turned out to be a complete bait and switch. It was not what was advertised whatsoever. Yes, it was dog-friendly and the view was amazing but aside from that every single thing at this resort at 
Las Olas Grand was broken! I’ve never had such a frustrating Airbnb experience. To be honest, in all of the worldwide travels we have done, I have never written less than a five-star review for stays from Mexico to southern India! I do a lot of research when it comes to planning our worldwide vacation but when it comes to traveling, well some short-term rental hosts are just dicks.
Hey Scot, at Las Olas Grand, when you flat-out lie on your Airbnb listing you are being the grandiest of assholes. I live and work in a resort town. Flat-out lying to tourists to make a buck is no way to enhance the Airbnb experience. I sincerely wish that Las Olas Grand had a Yelp account so I could warn other travelers about this literal shithole. (Yes, I almost stepped in dog shit multiple times throughout our stay as stray dogs roam the property and there is trash and feces everywhere.)
But the view was nice!
You can’t argue with the ocean views we experienced from the balcony of this “Luxury condo” But to me, luxury is not a sewer system that is constantly leaking stink that puts my dog to shame. When I think of the luxury condo experience also I would think the grounds would be manicured and not covered in every other tourist left behind garbage.
I mean you expect beaches in Mexico to not be clean like American beaches but I felt like no other travelers to this resort had ever heard of using a trash can! The only employees we saw all over the resort were six bored security guards wandering around. Okay yea for safety and all but how mismanaged is this place? Can’t one of the security team pick up the garbage or work on contracting someone to get the amenities working for your guests?
Bad hombres abroad
My boyfriend and I adore Baja California road-tripping but one thing about journeying through a Third World Country is it’s not like the United States. You do have to roll with the punches. However, our Airbnb owner was American and he should have been honest with us about the deplorable conditions of our “Luxury resort” stay.
One thing a
bout Baja California road-tripping is you always have to roll with the punches. Sure, your “Luxury resort may be a trash-incrusted pit with wild dogs running about shitting on the private beach and trying to take my dog’s virginity. Sure, the elevator may not work at all. Or the fridge. Or the dishwasher. Sure the four restaurants on site may not exist. This is why when planning a Baja California road trip, you plan ahead. It’s a fantastic idea to bring picnic snacks like the most delicious tuna salad ever. And for God’s sake, when adventuring on a Baja California road trip, pack your own water. Yes, our dumb-dumb of an Airbnb host told us it was okay to drink the tap water in Baja!
But don’t let my Airbnb nightmare dissuade you from traveling to Baja. I guess even here in our resort town of Big Bear Lake you could get stuck with a lying cheating unempathetic Airbnb owner. And one thing I have learned this week about all those five-star reviews for Airbnb Super Hosts is that once you as a guest write a review, the host has up to two weeks to open the correspondence on their end. If they think you wrote
them a bad review, they can just ignore your recent review for two weeks. When your honest review actually goes live, sometime in November, there could be multiple recent reviews in front of it in the queue and basically it’s just buried!
Baja Bound
Have you never planned a Baja California road trip before? Relax bro, traveling to Baja is easier and safer than you think. There are just a few rules to have a safe and fun Baja adventure.
- Don’t drink the water.
- Don’t do anything illegal.
- Don’t drive the highways at night. There are just so many hard-to-see potholes and also cows on highways.
- Be very vigilant about the stop signs on highways. They come out of nowhere and for no reason!
Seriously, American
s have all these hangups about driving south of National City but I’ve been adventuring in Baja since I was eighteen years old. Just don’t do anything dumb and you will be fine.
The first time I had this tuna salad was at a culinary shack on the side of the highway in Popotla. I find Popotla such an interesting place as it seems to me like a small town that just evolved overnight. I’ve been driving down to Baja for over twenty years. In 1999 when I first explored Baja California, there was nothing between Tijuana and Rosarito Beach. Once you left tiny Rosarito Beach behind there was just more sand and shore until you reached Baja Mar Golf Club, thirty minutes north of Ensenada. The tiny hamlets of Popotla and Primo Tapia seem like they sprouted up overnight.
What is the best thing about Primo Tapia and Popotla? This is the place to get your Jeep detailed so cheap. There is also a tiny beach you can walk to across the highway just past Mariscos La Alegria in Primo Tapia. You have to get tacos at this tiny little shack in Primo Tapia. I’m not one to shy aw
ay from street food. I have been inhaling fish tacos from this culinary delight shack for many years. I love that they give you a big tub of pickled onions and extra crema to fancy up your tacos just the way that you want.
Just south of Primo Tapia sits touristy Puerto Neuvo. Skip it. Drive twenty-south minutes past this tourist trap to Splashes for the best deal on Baja lobster tails anywhere on the Baja Norte Peninsula. Plus, their lobster bisque is also out-of-this-world good!
What is Baja Style Tuna Salad? It’s tuna salad you create ahead of time just in case you are too relaxed at your coastal Airbnb to leave the beach view and head to Tapaco. WHY NOT? for dinner.
This is just the best tuna salad to serve as an appetizer on crackers, to shove in half an avocado or to layer on a Sourdough Sweet Potato Chapati. Just add some homemade radish sprouts and Bing Bang Boom, and lunch is served!
Baja Style Tuna Salad
1 can good quality tuna, I use
2 teaspoons good quality mayonnaise
5 tiny French cornichon pickles, chopped up tiny
1 shallot, diced thin
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
Drain the tuna water and give it to your hungry cats. Mix all ingredients. You can keep this in the fridge for up to one week.
