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Published: January 23rd 2009
Once Upon A Time......
The huge flag that dominates the city.“What the hell are you going there for ?”, “You must be mad”, “Be very careful”, just three of the things that were said to me when I spoke of my intention to journey one hundred and thirty miles to the south to spend a Saturday night in the border crossing town of Tijuana, Mexico. With 858 deaths by the bullet in 2008 and seven on the Wednesday prior to my departure the people who made those remarks probably had a valid point but I answered the first question with the perfectly truthful retort of “for a bit of an adventure” thinking the chances of me becoming just another numberical statistic at the hands of the Arellano family run Tijuana Cartel to be pretty remote. The TJ Cartel, featured in the movie Traffic is one of Mexico’s big three narcotics gangs and has been described as "one of the biggest and most violent criminal groups in Mexico". They surely wouldn’t waste their time or their bullets on a harmless little boy from England would they ?.
Twenty four hours later I’d experienced the adventure I’d sought as well as coming closer,
much closer than I’d either have liked or anticipated to the dangers I’d been warned about, dangers which had emanated on Sunday morning from a totally unexpected source.
It all started well enough though. The Santa Ana winds had brought unseasonally hot weather to Southern California for the previous week and by 11am on Saturday morning I found myself cruising along Mission Boulevard in San Diego's Mission Beach neighbourhood with the thermometer touching eighty degrees and having taken an hour out of my journey to travel briefly down memory lane visiting the places that were frequented during my first Stateside trip back in 1987 I headed for the border.
Twenty minutes later I pulled into one of the many car parks that exist within walking distance of Mexico and prepared to go in. I’ve solo visited and survived infamously dangerous cities in the past, Sao Paolo, Rio throughout Carnival, the notorious La Boca neighbourhood of Buenos Aires amongst them so quite why I was feeling apprehensive, almost tense I don’t know. I'd never felt like this whilst travelling before but now I was slightly spooked and I could only put it down to the warnings I'd received prior
to departure.
As I was leaving the car park I was approached by a lad and a girl in their early twenties, two US students who asked if I would mind participating in a brief survey for their studies about my reasons for venturing across the border. I obliged and when I'd answered their questions I half jokingly asked them with a nod to the border if it was safe. Their reactions, a blank shrug of the shoulders with a half nervous wide eyed 'who knows' smile etched on their faces accompanied by the explanation that they'd never been across the border matter of factly said "rather you than me" and was enough to ensure that by the time I'd walked the ten minute walk to the border I was totally focussed, focussed almost to the point of paranoia on not letting anyone or anything get close enough to interfere with either me or my belongings.
Tijuana is apparently the most used border crossing in the world, half a million people reputedly using it every week but the actual entry into Mexico is more reminiscent of attending a sporting event than crossing an international border, a simple push
Once Upon A Time......
The snap that got me nicked. I didn't notice the car in the background about to roar over. on a head high turnstile and you're in. No showing of passport nor ID, no frisking or emptying out of baggage, not even sight nor sound of a customs official, just a straighforward walk onto Central American soil.
Once through the turnstile the atmosphere instantly took a turn for the worse. Mexicans are a hard, weathered and not particularily friendly looking race and I immediately felt vulnerable. The gang wars which have in recent months taken a turn for the worse have had the effect of deterring visitors from the States to the point that there was not sight nor sound of a westerner around. I walked the bridge, lined with desperate cow eyed pan handling mothers sat in the shade of the wall surrounded by five or six of their tiny siblings avoiding eye contact at all times and crossed the dry Tijuana River where youths in clapped out old bangers were congregated ready to race along the concrete bed before descending the steps into TJ for real. The difference of less than one mile from where the Jeep was waiting my return was immense. All of a sudden I found myself in a land of crumbling buildings,
Once Upon A Time.......
Habaneros, the hottest chilli. Evil. crumbling cars and crumbling, desperate looking people.
I headed for Revolucion, the original main street of Tijuana which starts in the extremely seedy 'Zone Norte' heart of downtown and which is land marked from afar by a huge steel arch. According to my research Revolucion was generally regarded as a safe haven to tourists and well used to being crowded with young US Marines and weekend trippers from over the border in San Diego anxious to take advantage of the lack of alcohol consumption age restrictions. But today was different, there were two things missing. Marines and tourists.
The waiters pacing the pavements attempting to drag anyone and everyone into their hostelries to sample their wares were there as were the makeshift stall holders selling tiny guitars and Christ on the cross mementoes by the basket full and the numerous white donkeys, bizarrely painted in a striped Zebra manner in a bid to entice the tourists to have their pictures taken with them. But no tourists.
After being hassled by the umpteenth waiter I decided to take time out and assess my surroundings and options. I took a seat on a bar stool looking out onto the
street with my bag close to my side and ordered a cold Corona which was delivered seconds later in a filthy plastic ice bucket that looked as though it had just come straight from a working building site accompanied by a tiny complimentary tequila served in an equally dirty plastic thimble. I asked the waiter if he had a recommendation of somewhere to stay and on the strength of his reference shelled out thirty two bucks and checked into the nearby Hotel Paris, a 'budget' gaff with holes in the curtains and bed spread, dossed my bag and headed out. I had no idea where I was going nor where I wanted to go, my aim was simply to explore.
I'd noticed on my walk up Revolucion an open topped tour bus crawl past, much like the type that snarls up the traffic in and around Chester each day. It was empty with the exception of the driver and the guide and my thought was that it would be a safe, simple and informative way of seeing the city but after twenty minutes of waiting at the stop there was still no sign so I decided to press on
Once Upon A Time.....
Gothic. Magnificent San Diego Chapel just north of SD. by foot. The cityscape of Tijuana from the US side of the border is dominated by a huge Mexican flag standing tall and proud from amongst the tightly packed buildings and it was now almost close enough to touch so in a bid to find it's source I turned off Revolucion and headed upwards. I could have been entering the most dangerous part of town for all I knew but with each step my confidence grew until eventually I reached it, sprouting out from a military base across the road from a small park. I sat for a while on a bench and took in my surroundings.
The area I was in was real Mexico, there were no gringos (tourists) around and some of the looks that came my way reminded me of this fact but it didn't take long to realise that on the whole these were just normal people trying to live their lives in a normal, friendly if occasionally hostile neighbourhood. As I sat and watched the world go by any fears I still had finally evaporated and when I finally arrived back on Revolucion an hour or so later I found the bus waiting at
Once Upon A Time......
Christ's on the crosses. the side of the road. It was 4.15pm and I was at a loose end so I approached and asked the elderly man sat on board whom I assumed was the driver if he was still open for business. He was actually the guide but when he'd retrieved the driver from the toilet we were off, me, my driver and my very own guide, Valentino, a sixty five year old lifetime inhabitant of Tijuana.
Within minutes we were away from Revolucion and the Downtown area and cruising around a modern, affluent City of statues, plush hotels and traffic filled streets. An hour and a half in Val's company was enough to convince me that the stories of danger may possibly have been exaggerated and Saturday night, on his recommendation, was spent in a couple of great bars that could have been situated in any City in any Continent around the world. I felt no threat whatsoever. By midnight, aided by a couple of Margerita's the memories of my initial entry just hours earlier had all but vanished but they were bought flooding back by the cab driver when I returned to Revolucion around midnight, "Thankyou. Be very careful" his
Once Upon A Time.......
My beer was served in a bucket straight from a building site. only words as I got out of his car.
I survived the night and was up early the following morning for a last daylight look around the downtown area before returning Stateside and was soon reminded just how seedy the whole place was. It felt was as though I'd just walked onto the set of 'Desperado'. Instrument carrying Mariachi's flocked to the town square from all directions ready to attempt to earn a crust from the handouts of the non existent tourists, drunks lay randomly spreadeagled on the pavements, invariably their sole possession, an unlabelled bottle of colourless liquid propped up alongside them and a disproportionate amount of dirty and unkempt street girls plied their trade in the hot morning sun.
It was one of these ladies of the night/morning, a fat, overweight girl dressed in pink with dyed hair and laddered fishnets who caught my eye. She was making a call on a payphone and the picture immediately summed up downtown Tijuana; Seedy and rough as hell. I reached for my camera, focussed and clicked and within seconds was approached by a uniformed police officer who'd leaped out of the car that had screeched to a halt
Once Upon A Time......
The eagle has landed. Park in TJ. at the kerbside. Oh Shit !
"Why you take picture of girl ?" he snapped.
I knew immediately the situation I found myself in was bad. Research about Mexico and Tijuana in particular had told me that the police force to be one of the world's most corrupt, I just assumed I'd stay out of their way and I'd be okay. But now I clearly wasn't okay.
Having unsuccessfully attempted to explain that photography was a hobby and having offered to delete the offending snaps I seconds later found myself stood legs akimbo with both hands on the police car roof as the policeman roughly turned out the contents of my pockets. My socks were searched, my wallet was sniffed for any hint of an illegal substance, I was told I was under arrest and then bundled into the cocoon that was the roasting hot back of the car. There were two cops, the driver who spoke no English whatsoever but whose role seemed to be that of lookout, grasping his automatic rifle in a manner that suggested he was more than prepared to use it and glancing around nervously checking the coast was clear to ensure
that the kidnapping went unhindered and the bulky shaven headed spokesman, the pigeon English speaking deal maker whose sinister manner was exaggerated by a tuneless hissing whistle that emanated from his lips every now and again.
We drove at a snails pace around the seediest of streets that probably no tourist other than those in a similar predicament to my own had ever been as Odd Job slowly browsed through the pictures on my cameras before informing me, in between explaining how much trouble I was in and his half hearted apologies for the quality of his English that I had two options, a visit to the judge that would take 36 hours to arrange and would involve a night in jail or the paying of an on the spot fine. I knew exactly what his game was and that I had committed no crime but was not going to question his motives or make any accusations of bullshit, the machine gun with the sellotaped ammo cartridge nestling on his lap making sure of that.
"How much money do you have?" he barked
I reached into my pockets and nervously unravelled the sweat dampened and crumpled notes
that were in my arse pocket.
"Seventy dollars" I replied holding the bundle out and hoping that it would enough to buy my ticket to freedom. My hopes and expectations were shattered with a look on his face and a shake of his head told me it wasn't enough, nowhere near enough.
A call came over the radio in Spanish and we suddenly sped up, screeched around two right hand corners throwing me around the cramped back seat space like a rag doll and pulled up outside a ramshackle bar where a young man in his early twenties and covered in dirt and blood was thrown into the back of the car with me. He didn't even glance at me to acknowledge my existence, just ranted in Spanish to the two enforcement officers in the front who, it seemed, took absolutely no notice of him whatsoever.
Once he'd been deposited came the next moment of concern for me. We pulled into a quiet residential street lined on either side by battered cars which straight away revealed itself to be a dead end, ahead of us nothing but a head high graffiti covered wall. Why were we coming
down here ? They were either going to throw me out, take my cameras and iPod and leave me stranded or worse still shoot me. I've read about stranger things happening. I cannot explain the relief when they pulled into the kerb and I realised that the last building on the right hand side was a tiny Police Station. Odd Job entered, returned a couple of minutes later and we were off again.
By this stage I'd suggested on a couple of occasions that they took me to an ATM where I could withdraw money to pay the 'fine' but OJ wasn't happy with this scenario and made a suggestion
"You give me the card and number and I will withdraw the money"
For a second I wondered whether I had dickhead tattooed on my forehead. It wasn't easy resisting the urge to say 'what do you think I am ? Fucking stupid ?' but I did and somehow also managed to ignore/resist his suggestions to the point that after an hour or so we pulled into the kerb outside an ATM in, surprise surprise, a very quiet and unpopulated part of town. He gave his orders,
the door was clicked open, I clambered out, quickly withdrew 200 dollars and got back in and minutes later having slid the bundle of cash as instructed through the tiny gap between the glass partition and the roof of the car was dropped off, again in a barely populated part of town with a couldn't care less warning not to take any more photographs of the girls.
My final concern as I got out onto the pavement was that they'd drive off with my cameras and iPod, they'd been very interested after all in their value throughout my time with them which I'd lied about but they were politely handed back and then they were gone leaving me very relieved on the pavement. As i stood for a few seconds pulling myself together I was immediately approached and abused by a mangy mongrel who thankfully soon gave up the ghost before I made my way back to the hotel as fast as my legs would carry me and hotfooted it straight to the border to safety.
A week later I received and e mail from Dan showing a page from the BBC website. It read that 21 police
officers from the Mexican border town of Tijuana had been arrested by authorities on charges of corruption. I looked skywards and prayed Odd Job and the Mute where amongst them.
Since my last blog we have seen history made in the United States with the election of the first ever Afro American President. I arrived at work on Tuesday to find a large TV screen set up in the dining area, chairs arranged neatly around it and tons of various flavoured muffins stacked ready for the taking. I asked Lisa 2 what it was all for and felt a tad embarrassed that I was unaware it was all for the inaugauration speech of my adopted countries 44th President, Barack Obama. Aside from when Phil's girls hijack my TV and switch to the Disney Channel it remains fixed on one channel, The Fox Soccer Channel and unsurprisingly they'd never metioned it.
By 8.30am the seats were packed as the mainly American staff watched the proceedings agog, this was history in the making after all applauding each and every part of the process as only Americans can. Obama's speech to the world, I thought, was as impressive an address as
I've seen and I actually found myself believing his words. Of course only time will tell if his promises were just more political flannel but his election has definitely instilled a renewed optimism throughout the entire country, probably the whole world, the hope and expectations generated after eight years of the Bush Administration is good for all to see.
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Harriet
non-member comment
You should write a book....
Matt, can't believe it... hope you're ok. Crazy stuff, but i'm glad you choose to go to places like that anyway- life would be very boring if we never took any risks! That said- no more photos of ladies! lol. Seriously though, glad you got back to the US safe and sound. I've decided you should write a book about your travels, I for one, would definitely buy it! Chat soon. xxx