Mexico (and lots of Canadians)

"Welcome to Tijuana"

I've spent the last week or so in San Diego, taking the train down the coast from San Luis Obispo. The first night, I stayed at the hostel downtown. As I was locking up my bike, I recognized a couple of yellow bikes with BOB trailers that I'd seen at the hostel in San Francisco, even though I hadn't ever met the owners. Later, I talked to a young Canadian woman boxing up her bike, and learned the yellow bikes belonged to her friends. They'd all cycled down the coast together from Canada, and she was headed home, while they were continuing down the Baja peninsula. A bit later, I ran into a fellow I rode with for a day along the California coast, and had later seen again in SF during the Critical Mass ride. He and I went out for dinner, then wandered around to every Irish pub within a couple of blocks of the hostel (there were actually a surprising number!) looking for the Canadians. We finally found them, and drank beer together while trading stories.

The next night, I had dinner with my cousin and his family, and ended up staying at his place for the rest of the week. A nice change from the hostels, and nice to visit with them. I decided to stick around for Thanksgiving (and a couple of more nights), then returned to the hostel to meet up with a couple of different Canadians I'd met up in San Francisco. (I seem to be hanging out with a lot of Canadians this trip -- I also met one in Monterey, and another in San Luis Obispo).

So today I headed down to Tijuana, finally getting outside of the US, if only briefly. My main purpose was to scout out the border crossing and check on bus schedules, but I spent a fair amount of time just wandering, enjoying the foreignness. The border crossing was interesting, as I think it is the first time I've walked across an international border (excepting my visits to the Vatican when in Italy, which I don't think really counts). Walking across the pedestrian bridge over the many lanes of cars entering into the US, I watched at least five people being hauled out of the trunk of a smallish car at the secondary inspection area. It was quite a contrast to my crossing into Mexico, with a couple of bored policeman not even paying attention to the people walking through the one-way turnstyles. In fact, it took a bit of looking to locate the place to get a tourist card, which is required if you venture away from the border area. I didn't need one today, but I will later.

I wandered the city a couple of hours, practicing my Spanish while getting some information about the buses, withdrawing some Mexican pesos from an ATM, and purchasing a wire-bound road atlas. But I looked in vain for the faux zebras (painted burros) that I'd been told about. I guess maybe the rain scared them away, or perhaps Monday is their day off. Crossing back into the US was a bit of a hassle, mostly because of the huge line of people waiting to cross the border. Things are definitely slower when everyone has to show ID.

As for my plans, originally I was going to hop on a bus from Tijuana to La Paz then do a loop of southern Baja by bicycle, but a cycling pal from Vancouver who has cycled in Baja (yet another Canadian), has urged me to check out some other parts of the peninsula, so I might change my plan. In any case, it looks like I'll probably be spending at least one more day in San Diego running errands and picking up some supplies that will be easier to find in the US than in Mexico.