TJ

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TJ. Tijuana. Good old Mexico. Mexico is a very interesting country. Massive in size, very intriguing culture and history, various climates with desert as well as tropical forests, big cities and small villages, friendly people. The contrast from neighboring San Diego and California is indeed gigantic. You have clearly entered a country that is not the US. It doesn’t feel very exotic though. More like sleepy, touristy, and not at all interesting from a traveling point of view. This is where Californian college kids go partying because the drinking age more generous than in the US. This is where visitors to California go visiting Mexico just to be able to add a country to their list. With little expectations of excitement, me and my two Swedish travel companions joined that second category of visitors with an empty page in the passport to fill out. Parked the car on the US side, took the shuttle bus across the border. Where’s the adventure in that anyway? “Park your car here. Get on the bus. Ride for 15 minutes. You’re now in Mexico”. Anyway, Tijuana offers little more than the average tourist spot the average traveler has seen so many times in Spain or Thailand or Greece or Hawaii. The standard gift shops, restaurants, and bars. The only variation is the local theme. Naturally the theme in Mexico offers typical local clothing, the local currency Peso, tacos, Corona, and tequila. So, we do our thing, walk around the city, take a few pictures, have some local food, exchange a few words in Spanish with the locals, have a Corona beer, and hit back to the “other side”. The “other side” is the United States. Whereas we as tourists have the luxury to cross borders only by flashing a passport, Mexicans find it a bit more tricky to cross the border to the land of opportunities in the north. The manners of crossing the border may or may not be as creative and in some cases desperate as you see in the movies. Clearly people in Mexico on occasion do try to cross the border trying to avoid all the bureaucracy that is associated with such a project. Driving south, the closer you come to the border, the more frequent are the yellow and black road signs warning for running people on the roads. Possibly the most interesting sight on a day trip to Mexico. Tell people you have been to Mexico, they go “wow”. Tell people it was in TJ, they go “oh…”…

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