Tijuana

Mar. 11, 2000

Tijuana, Mexico

A rather interesting day today, I took my first foray into Mexico.... alone.

I should have realized that there was something strange going on when I noticed that mine was one of 3 cars on a 6-lane highway at the border crossing. I had read in the local newspaper that there were numerous murders of high-ranking officials in Tijuana. The police chief just had his $38,000 suburban (not to mention his ass) turned into Swiss cheese. But being the adventuresome sort, I decided to have a go at it.

I crossed the border and met with the brightly painted bars and underage hangouts of Revolucion. A once weekend haunt of the high school and college crowds. It was all I had imagined it would be, sombreros and little piñata’s tied to sticks for sale alongside some of the 'wettest' alcohol around. But that wasn't the TJ I had come to see. So I turned south on what was left of highway 1 and set out to see the sights. In the span of 3 minutes I had left the kiddy bars behind and driven into a war zone. The streets were covered with rubble and littered with bullet riddled cars, stripped of salvageable parts and left derelict, emptied of anything of value save the bloodstained carpets.

It is an amazing dichotomy, in the north, San Diego filled with cookie cutter people. Fake breasts, nose jobs, laser removed hemorrhoids, our mouths nary a pucker away from the teat of opulence. Floating through our days talking of stock prices and game shows our only worries, traffic jams and wrinkle crèmes. The south, a wasteland of impoverished, socially degraded people, trampled by a government as corrupt as the drug cartels they fight for power. You can see it in their eyes; they have nothing left to lose. Even the kids seem to have that cold, steely stare that makes your ass pucker and the hair on the back of your neck rise. They have seen too much and know they're only going to see more... there is no way out for them, they're trapped. They line the streets and alleys, with nothing left to do but sit and watch the world speed by; wondering when they might see their next meal, or where they'll sleep. Well... at least they don't have to worry about gas prices.

So I'm driving along noticing that out of the three Federales I have seen, they have all had Americans pulled over. Hmmmm.... I thought to myself... we must be really bad drivers. The smell of sewage forces me to roll up the window (in retrospect, a wise thing to do) as I pass what appears to once have been a storm gutter. It seems to have double duties, now serving as a sewer as well. My eyes are alive, darting across the landscape, assessing each threat and plotting escape routes at I drive further into the bowels (literally, judging from the smell of things) of the city.

I mentally check my mouth to be sure it has not gone slack with disbelief, as I tour the city. I honestly thought this world of ours had evolved beyond the squalor that these people live in. Shacks made of corrugated sheet metal and pallets with cardboard doors and communal troughs, which serve as plumbing, for lack of a better word. I know we have the resource at our disposal to eliminate these atrocities, why don't we use them? Aren’t there agencies that make sure these people have the necessities of life? Where is my little adopted Mexican girl that Sally Struthers promised she would take care of?

Suddenly a little voice says, "Hey... moron... you are the only white guy in ten square miles driving the only vehicle that has all the same color body panels... what is your malfunction!" In a flash the bowling ball size cajones I was packing shrink to b.b's and I start feeling like a Chihuahua in a Rottweilers dinner bowl. Time to leave. So I hightail it back to the border making sure I didn't come across an overly friendly Federale along the way.

Rounding the last turn back to the border crossing checkpoint I see that there are a few more than the 3 cars that I came in with trying to get out. The line was 8 lanes, at least a 1/4 mile long and dotted with street vendors trying to unload their trinkets on gullible gringos... that being me. I was the only white guy, save a lone motor home, that I had seen the entire morning. An intimidating stare and disapproving shake of the head sent most of them on their way and left a persistent few to vainly plead for a buck.

The line barely inched forward as the border patrol checked IDs and smog certificates before letting Mexican nationals pass. Surely they would be looking forward to seeing a fellow American returning from no mans land... not the case. "How long were you in Mexico" barked the border guard. After I told him I had been there only a few short hours he began to question my sanity. "Don't you know it’s not safe for Americans to travel in Mexico?" he asked, "what would you do if they had stolen your car or kidnapped you?" I assure him that I was quite capable of taking care of myself and he assured me of just the opposite. "It's the Federales you have to watch down here. They are the ones who arrest Americans and hold them on trumped up charges for ransom or outrageous bail."

After spending the next hour in customs having various possessions and parts searched, sniffed, questioned and quizzed, I was free to go with an admonition to stay on the northern side of the border until the political unrest had rested.

So I went back home to dinner and a warm bed. (after watching a game show or three) And later when I awoke in a sweat with the image of that child's steely, cold stare burned in my subconscious, I let myself slip into his shoes... or maybe his bare feet. I'd gotten a new perspective in TJ and not one that was fed to me on a TV tray, sanitized for my protection. The world was a little bigger and I was slightly humbled by the experience.

I know there is more to Mexico than I'd seen, and I know there is more to Mexico than I know... so I'll go back for a little more perspective, and maybe a little less Tijuana.