Ensenada

Ensenada is a port city on Bahía de Todos Santos, on the Pacific coast of Baja California, about 100 km south of the US border and roughly an hour and a half by road from Tijuana. The 2020 census counted 330,652 people in the city, the third largest in the state, and about 443,800 in the municipality. It is a working town of fishing boats, canneries and a deepwater port, with a laid-back seafront that gets weekend visitors from San Diego and Los Angeles and cruise passengers on short trips from Southern California.

Cabrillo reached the bay in 1542 and Vizcaíno gave it its present name, Ensenada de Todos Santos, in 1602; the first settler, José Manuel Ruiz, was granted land in 1804. The town grew after the 1873 mining boom at Real del Castillo, which made it the port of entry for supplies, and in 1882 it became the capital of the northern district of the territory, a role it kept until the seat moved to Mexicali in 1915. During Prohibition in the United States it became a weekend destination for Americans and Canadians, which is the era of the Hotel Riviera del Pacífico, a 1930s hotel and casino that is now a cultural center and museum.

Food is the reason many people come. The Mercado de Mariscos, also known as the Mercado Negro, sits near the port at the north end of the waterfront and sells fish and shellfish to families and restaurants; stalls around it fry fish tacos with batter and sauces to order. Tacos Fenix, open since 1970, is one of the best known; La Guerrerense, Sabina Bandera's stall on Avenida López Mateos, is famous for its ceviche and tostadas. Hussong's Cantina, dating from 1892 and still in its original building, claims to be where the margarita was invented in the 1940s, a claim disputed elsewhere in Mexico. The Baja Med cuisine of the region mixes Mexican, Mediterranean and Asian ideas with local seafood.

Ensenada is also the gateway to the Valle de Guadalupe wine country, about 30 km inland, which makes most of Mexico's wine, and to La Bufadora, the blowhole on Punta Banda to the south. Grey whales pass offshore in winter, with whale-watching trips from about November to April. The climate is mild and dry, with rain mostly between November and February and the warmest weather in summer and early fall.