Welcome to Tijuana (t, s, m)

Merry Christmas from Mexico!

Just a week removed from San Diego and I'm fully back into the traveler's mode. In fact, it took about 10 minutes since crossing the border in Tijuana that I felt ready for the adventure.

Rory and I had done no planning apart from deciding when and where we would meet to begin our journey. We had a rough idea that we would travel down the Baja toward Cabo for Christmas, then take the ferry across to the mainland and go from there.

I had a wonderful visit with Barb and Larry (and Jodie, Apollo and James) in San Diego. Amidst an uncommonly rainy San Diego, Barb and Larry took me on a couple driving tours of some of the different neighborhoods. It's always so nice catching up with far flung family, and Barb and Larry are consummate hosts. On the last night before we took off, Larry fired up the rotisserie, my old friend Marie came over and we ate Cornish Game Hens and had a game of no hold 'em, which Jody (Jodith) nobly won.

The next day the trolley took us right to the border. The disparity is stark. From the trolley you can see the border fence climbing up a distant hillside with houses on the Mexican side and an oft patrolled road on the other. In the span of 100 meters life changes drastically.

Without incident, we walked across and through a turnstile. No need to mention to anyone that we're going, no necessary paperwork. We decided to go back and grab a visa that we knew would be an unnecessary expense, but would give us the peace of mind of knowing that we are in the country legally. Crossing the border seemed to bring back our language skills, and the immigration officer let us know that we could grab a bus to the bus terminal from nearby, rather than getting ripped off and possibly robbed by a taxi driver. It was good advice, as there had been 200 murders in Tijuana in the last month and gringos, although not as likely as the police or carteleros, are targets.

The bus station was full as the flash flooding in San Diego had been snow in the high mountains between Tijuana and Mexicali and the passengers from the day before had been stranded. The buses to Baja were not delayed but were slow nonetheless and about twice as expensive to go the same distance as on the mainland. If the buses were twice as expensive, everything was bound to be incredibly touristy and it didn't take us long to alter our plans.

The sun was setting as we crested the snowy mountains along the U.S. Border between TJ and Mexicali. Children had what must have been a rare opportunity to throw snowballs at their siblings as we crawled by with the sky spitting pinks and purples towards to the plain below. The traffic was bad and it was almost exclusively California and Arizona (one Oregon) license plates that we were stuck behind at the tolls and drug checkpoints. Everyone going home for Christmas with children's bikes and other gifts strapped to their roof or even towed behind. And so a 20 hour trip to Los Mochis became 30 and all the sudden we were back. On the road.

From Los Mochis, we read en route, we could get on the famed FerroMex through the Copper Canyon. This railroad, which took decades and 400 lives to build, navigates a canyon that is larger and deeper than the grand canyon (although admittedly less spectacular from the views we saw). It was an amazing trip, and we arrived to a tiny village on the canyon rim near dusk, called Posadas Barrancas. We were greeted by Armando, the owner of the guest house where we had planned to stay. After a quick jaunt to check out the canyon as the sun set we came back to a hearty Mexican meal and retired to our room to build a roaring fire and finish both of our books.

The next day we took off for Creel and found ourselves hustled by Miguel (probably 10 years old, very cool kid) into Casa Margarita. We were planning on staying there anyway, and so had no qualms with allowing Miguel to lead the way. From Creel we had a massive day of walking which was not so good for my injured achilles, then, after missing our train we stayed an extra day and climbed boulders, of which there was no shortage. In fact the area around Creel is smothered with rock formations and incredible climbing opportunities. We found one rock on a bluff above the town that had a particularly intriguing "problem" as tricky routes are known in climbing speak. It was a bit of an overhang and we worked on it for hours, not able to quite get it. The next morning we headed back (with a professional climbing guide from Arizona that we'd met) and he and Rory both took it down, but my arms were too shot from the day before and I wasn't able to pull it off. Good times, though.

We managed to catch our train the next day and we headed on what was sure to be a long journey towards where we now find ourselves: Mazatlan. The sun had set and I was sick of my book so I decided to turn on a movie on the iPod. Rory went to the bathroom to put some of the tequila we'd acquired into a water bottle in the interest of being discreet. On his way he ran into Ivan Beltran, who came back with him to our seats. Ivan told us quite a story, but by the end of it we weren't up to the adventure of being his buddy. Ivan lives in Oklahoma, but was coming home to visit his family in Culiacan. In his Tulsan, thugged out (sounds oxymoronic, I know) dialect, Ivan told of his family, some of whom are in prison and others that work for his father who is a prominent drug lord. With his gang tattooed hands in his jacket pockets, he emphatically told us stories of his fathers weapons cache and of his trips back to the states—walking for three days across the desert with nothing but 20 kilos of marijuana strapped to his back.

Fatima also kept us company on the train. The cutest 4 year old possibly in this world, she wandered the train and would stop to chat for a few minutes, then, mid-sentence would be bored with us and gone.

We arrived to Los Mochis after midnight and took a taxi with Ivan to whichever bus company would take us south. We found a bus that was leaving at 1am and were happy when we reached his town as his requests to borrow money had steadily increased throughout our short relationship. Even with Ivan gone and the worry that he might demand instead of ask behind us we couldn't sleep and arrived to Mazatlan as the sun rose, but without having any quality shut eye. We checked into Hotel Belmar and slept the first part of the day. The second half was mostly spent in a daze, loathing our fellow Americans as they bumbled around town with their loud English and disinterest in assimilating to the culture.

After a few Christmas Eve tequilas we headed out to get some food but managed to time our arrival with the closing of every restaurant. On our search we gazed, stunned, as an old Cadillac convertible with Oregon plates (again?) and several 60-70 year old Santa-clad ex-pats idled through the plaza, their sled adorned with Christmas lights. Their chants of "ho-ho-ho" brought into clear contrast the American patrons of the several restaurants at one end of the plaza, clapping, and the Mexican families waiting for midnight mass in the cathedral at the other end of the plaza. We ended up with half of a chicken, some beans, rice and potato chips. Not your traditional Christmas Eve fair, but it worked just fine for us.

Today was our first glimpse of the Mexican Pacific and as the sun set we got our first taste. Our plan is to stay here through Christmas and then to head south to San Blas where hopefully the waves will be bigger and the tourists fewer.

Merry Christmas!