Drugs anyone?
Written: Jun 13 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Inexpensive merchandise, plenty of dentists
Cons: Filthy and full of beggars
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| Jennainwi's Full Review: Tijuana |
For our one year wedding anniversary, (April 2000) my husband took me on a fabulous trip to southern California. We flew into Los Angeles International Airport, rented a car and tooled around the California deserts and national parks.
Neither my husband or myself, who are both extensive travelers, had ever left the country. Given we were visiting southern California, we decided we would take a little excursion down to Tijuana, Mexico. No passports were required and we were ready to go !
Total length of our excursion: 45 minutes (about all we could stand)
To set the backdrop for this trip, let me tell you this. We were VERY hyped up about this segment of our trip. We planned our Mexican journey for weeks. We gathered information, surfed some informative websites and upon our arrival in California, picked up every god forsaken, cheesy brochure we could find on Tijuana. (haha)
I was completely paranoid that someone was going to smash my rental car there. Insurance coverage in the United States is NOT valid in Mexico. We had two choices there. Buy Mexican auto insurance for our short shopping trip or park in a parking lot just on the south side of the border. Since there was a skywalk right from the parking lot to the shops we wanted to visit, (per one of those cheesy brochures !) we chose to skip buying auto insurance and park our rental car.
Well when we crossed into Mexico, we couldn't find that parking lot. It seems an accident that was blocking entrance to this parking lot caused us to miss it completely. (It was there because I saw it on the way out, but the accident and emergency vehicles were blocking it on the way in). So now, here we were driving uninsured down in Mexico.
My first thought was that the place was absolutely filthy !! Garbage littered the streets and most of the signs on their stores here looked hand-painted and dumpy. It was crowded with people and didn't smell the greatest.
We quickly found a different little parking lot off to the side of a few blocks of stores so we parked the rental and got out to walk. We had to hand our keys over to some shady, slimy looking guy who spoke no English. But hey, at least he was gainfully employed.
It seemed the rest of Tijuana were all employed as beggars ! I do not exaggerate when I say that I did not walk more than 5 feet at a time without being pestered for money or followed by someone trying to put beads around my neck. (For a donation of course!) Store owners were out in front of their stores trying to con you in anyway they could to come browse their wares. It was so bad that my husband and I were almost in tears from laughing at the antics these store owners would try. (Guessing your weight or age, handing out worthless coupons, offering you a free sip of their liquors, etc.)
Not only is their a dentisto (dentist) every 50 feet, but their are TONS of drugstores. Being from the United States, it sure sounded odd having people yelling "Cheap drugs in here, come inside !". (They WERE of the prescription type and not of the illegal type).
Regardless of the countless beggars and the hounding store clerks we had fun. (It was more amusing than annoying !) We got our picture taken with a zebra on a street corner, and saw that Domino's Pizza in Tijuana delivered pizzas on these funny looking little motor scooter bikes.
We visited the Hard Rock Cafe, bought souvenirs, and requested some of our change be exchanged into pesos so we could bring them back home for our kids. While walking out, pesos in hand, several small children ran to us, shoved empty cups in our face and begged for our pesos. I was truly saddened that children in some countries were brought up begging for whatever they could get. So, I spared a few pesos to save my conscious and hopefully to get them something to eat.
When we finally tired of being pestered and pressured to shop in seedy looking storefronts, we made our way back to the car, again being stopped every 5 feet, and headed back to the parking lot to retrieve our rental car. The slimy looking guy luckily hadn't run off with it anywhere. (haha).
We got a bit lost trying to find the freeway leading us back to the United States, but before long we managed to head in the right direction. Along the way, (while stopped at a stop sign) I was talked into buying a beautiful bouquet of flowers (roses and sunflowers) for only "cinco dollars". (Five bucks)Actually, the guy made my hubby buy them for me by using the "guilt" tactic on him. The guy made his money, I got some flowers and hubby felt like a good guy. They were all dead the next day.
At the border inspection station, there are countless Mexicans lining the streets walking up and down between waiting cars hawking their merchandise. Most were walking but some were using a wheelchair ploy. (I actually saw a couple switch off being in the wheelchair !)
When we finally passed through the border inspection (which consisted of, Are you American Citizens? You are? Go ahead !) we were pretty happy to be back in our native country.
I am sure that it may seem that in reading my review that I totally hated Tijuana. In actuality, I didn't. It was just an experience that was much different than the ones I experience in the United States. In reality, begging to the people of Tijuana is a job. Just like we go to work everyday, they go to work just the same. It is their way of life.
Instead of being frustrated by these people or their dirty streets and storefronts, I instead tried to remember that this was a poor community and that not everyone was as lucky as I was. I viewed it more as a cultural comparison than an annoyance. I also bore in mind that although I lived in a middle class, clean neighborhood back home, that there are certainly parts of my own city that I would not be caught dead in at night.
There are nicer parts of Mexico and the entire country should obviously not be judged by the first city you hit when crossing their border out of southwestern California. It was definitely an interesting experience, but not one I would be all that excited to try again anytime soon.
Thanks for reading ! :)
P.S. For those of you waiting to hear about the rental car, we escaped without a scratch !
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Jennainwi
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Member: Dawn Turner
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 7 members
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