Arrived by tram (or Trolley how its name is in San Diego) at the border, we were quite surprised. It is probably the first border we crossed that really does look like a border. This means, huge walls, barb wires, shooting towers and so on. And we planned to go directly on the other side in the middle of the city with the highest illegal trading of drugs in the world… That trial included the next surprise: The “immigration” to Mexico goes through a hub! Yes you hear right! You walk through a hub through the wall and press a button which randomly produces a red or a green light (we both had green) and that’s it. You’re in Mexico. As we came from the quite snobby San Diego, it was a bit like a cultural shock. Nissan huts, poor, homeless, drug dealers and shabby street shops followed us on our way to the centre of Tijuana, which surprised us, as it wasn’t as bad as we thought.
That’s actually only true for the (really touristy) main street through the town. If you go only a few meter in another street, the picture turns back to the bad side. Besides the experience of having been to Mexico, there is not that much to do in Tijuana (unless you need illegal drugs or cheap medicine) and due to the closure of the only interesting museum in town, we went back to San Diego quite soon. Also because there was this huge queue of people waiting for us in order to get back to the States. However, it wasn’t as bad as we thought (people tell stories about 2-4 hours of waiting time) and after 45 minutes we were back in western civilisation! By the way, there is another hint for all of you who ever wanted to walk over to Mexico. There is a separate line called “Fast Entrance” which is for US citizens only. However, nobody cares about it and you can go back to the regular line which saves you a lot of waiting in the heat!
And that was it, our adventure to Mexico. Far less adventurous as you may have thought, but a very odd experience.
Oh yes, unfortunately we didn’t get our desired Mexico stamp in our passport 🙁