Mexicali.

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Mexicali, 08-10-2002, nighttime.

Easy and relaxed cycling today after a good night's rest in La Rumerosa which was mostly a truckstop village with a small comedor, an open air garage, old caravans, rusty mobile homes and a small hotel where I was the only customer.
Lots of trucks parked at the side of the road but I presume the drivers to have spent the night inside the cabins of their trucks instead of cashing out on these dingy little rooms the hotel offered at a hefty twenty american green backs.
The last thirty kilometers where downhill through a beautiful landscape, the sort of light brown colored granite boulders strangely shaped and thrown around by a goliath, I remember from five years ago when I cycled down the Baja to Cabo San Luca.
Hotel Nuevo Pascifica is mentioned in my Lonely Planet under the bottom end of "places to stay", cheap but noisy accomodation in a quistionable setting and in a questionable neighborhood.
With my bike parked inside my room and freshly showered, a good shave and clean clothes on my body, I've taken a chair from the lobby to sit outside and enjoy a few cold Tecate beer.
I'm surrounded by young mexican ladies sitting on chairs or leaning against the wall, dressed in their best clothes, make-up on their faces, earrings and chaep jewelry. Some smoke sigarettes, others look with envy at the six pack of Tecate next to my chair.
With the border crossing to the USA just a mere four hundert meters away it seems obvious what these ladies are waiting for....you got it right...americanos with stacks of dolars in the pockets of their blue jeans hopping across the frontier for a night of fun and cheap booze at one of the numerous rowdy bars that dot this area, get themselves loaded before wandering around on a h*rny search for......well I'm sure you're getting the idea.
Tomorrow I'll cross into the United States.

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Photos

Emilio Zapato
an aquarel from my travel log.