A Day in Baja, Mexico [Travel Recap]

Living in the San Diego area, crossing the border into Mexico has been long on my bucket list… and last weekend, I finally got to check it off!

As an American, the concept of being able to just hop over a country border by land is interesting to me. It’s not something I’ve gotten to do very much. In my European travels, I’ve crossed borders in trains and busses, but I barely have known when I’ve crossed into another country since it’s not necessary to go through customs between European Union countries… but the idea of literally walking over a border? Intriguing! The 4-day Thanksgiving weekend seemed like the perfect chance to spend a day exploring Baja.

I’ve found that there are two categories of Southern California residents when it comes to Baja travel: a.) ones who have been there at least a few times and encourage it, or b.) those who have never been there and think you’re crazy for wanting to visit.

I got a few, “Are you insane?!! It’s so dangerous there!” comments from friends, but it didn’t deter me. I’ve been to different areas of Mexico and the world that are impoverished, and I think that it’s fine 99.99% of the time as long as you’re careful and have awareness of your surroundings. I’ll take my chances.

Thus, the plan was to visit a museum, get a bite to eat, and walk around Avenida Revolucion – a popular, touristy area of Tijuana.

We drove my car down to the last exit in San Diego, San Ysidro, and parked in a lot right off of the exit. We had planned to take a bus into Baja, but when we found out that the bus wasn’t leaving for 30 minutes, we decided to just walk it. From the lot, it took maybe 15 minutes to get to customs, where they stamped my passport, issued me a tourist card (free if you’re staying in Mexico for less than a week), and I was on my merry way. Once we got into Mexico, we grabbed a taxi to take us to the Tijuana Cultural Center.

Outside there was an exhibit of sorts to commemorate those who have fallen victim to the gang violence in the area. Victims’ shoes were dyed in red, and families left notes sharing who their loved one was and pleading for no more violence.

After we checked out some art inside…

…we nabbed tickets to the Museo de las Californias – a museum housed in the cultural center that walks you through the history of Baja.

I learned some fun facts, including that men stepped onto the Baja peninsula for the first time about 14 thousand years ago. They’re thought to have been hunter-gatherers from Asia. Also, San Diego became American territory after a US/Mexico war in 1846.

All of the museum information was translated into English, which gave me a break from having to practice my Spanish memory muscle. I’m not a huge museum fan, but I do dig museums that showcase the history of an area I’m in. The museum was great, and well worth the $2 for a ticket!

Afterwards, we had a bit of a foodie adventure fail. I had done some research beforehand to find renowned foodie areas. First we attempted to find a food garden by foot, but eventually gave up when we couldn’t find it. We then hopped into a taxi and gave the driver an address for a gourmet food truck area I had read about called Telefonica Gastro Park. Our taxi driver spoke no English, which didn’t help, and we pretty much drove around looking for it for 20 minutes before calling it quits.

I was bummed that neither one of my food ideas had worked out, but I was also hungry, so we headed over to Avenida Revolucion (aka La Revo) and grabbed lunch at a random joint that we walked by. We shared guacamole and chips, and both had veggie fajitas with rice and beans.

Since tequila and I aren’t friends, I instead enjoyed a rum-filled strawberry daiquiri.

After lunch, we walked around La Revo and checked out some shops. With lots of sex shops and clubs around, I could tell that the area is kind of seedy and probably turns into an racy scene at night.

We met a really cute art shop owner (his art is pictured below) who spoke perfect English and talked to us about the recent lack of tourists from the San Diego area. As he put it, “There’s violence, but it’s not violence against tourists and it’s not as bad as the media has portrayed it. It’s gang violence. I say, ‘Let those gangsters kill each other until they’re all dead!'”

Touche mister. 

Afterwards, we had had our fill and were ready to head out of Tijuana. For the trip back into the U.S., we took what’s called the El Ticketon bus for $5 a piece. It was exactly the situation I had expected: kind of shady and not very predictable – the bus was delayed, so we took another bus, were told we’d have to switch busses to cross the border, but then we wound up staying on the same bus while the driver left and another one got on – but it got us back to the border line to go through customs, so it was all good. Sometimes you just have to roll with it, ya know?

U.S. customs took us about 30 minutes to get through, and I was so glad that we didn’t drive our car into Mexico. I’ve heard that the line to get back into the U.S. can take hours, and it was packed that day! We walked back to our car, and just like that, we were back in San Diego….daytime trip to Baja complete!

A few random things to know about Baja:

• Currency. While Baja currency is Mexico’s peso, they accept American dollars everywhere.
• Currency exchange. 10 pesos = 60 cents…although it was easier for me to remember that 50 pesos equates to $3.
• Bring your Spanish dictionary! Almost no one I met spoke English. A wasn’t at all surprised by this, but I kind of thought that some people would speak English. Turns out I remember a good amount from my middle school Spanish classes – though I’m sure studying the similar language of Italian in high school and college, plus studying abroad there helped me a lot.
• It’s not much cheaper. When I was calculating currency exchange in stores and restaurants, I was surprised to see that the pricing was pretty similar to the U.S.
• Taxis. I had read articles saying to take only yellow taxis, then others saying to take the blue and white cars. We wound up getting into only yellow cars. I’m pretty sure they just made up prices, but they were reasonable made-up prices so it was fine.

Tell me… Have you ever crossed a border by foot? Ever visited anywhere in Mexico?