Saturday Sep 2, 2023 - Day in Tijuana Mexico

Good sleeping in Jake & Nath’s comfy home. The cats don’t know what to make of us but they are slowly getting used to us being around. Tyler (the dog) is our old friend since he spent a couple weeks in Bisbee with us a while ago. 

Today was get to know Tijuana day. We are only about 20 minutes from downtown and traffic was normal. Drivers here are actually very good. Everyone jostles for position but everyone lets you change lanes when you need to and they let pedestrians cross. There are less angry self-righteous drivers. Kind of what I remember about China. People watching out for each other a bit more.

We found a parking garage and started our exploration. Lots of street markets selling anything you could think of. Tourist stuff for sure, but also every kind of fruit or vegetable so I assume lots of people get their produce on Saturday. You have to watch where you are walking as the sidewalks have lots of holes and missing covers so it's easy to twist your ankle or worse. Bisbee has some rough spots to be fair. People seem happy and pleasant and we did not feel like we stuck out as gringos. No homeless folks for the most part. Feels very safe.

We stopped at the restaurant where the Caesar salad was invented in 1924. Apparently they were running low on supplies and the chef whipped something up from what he had in the kitchen. We ordered one of those and also another less famous salad called the Victor salad, invented in 1955. It’s kind of a fancy place with the entire staff crisply dressed and seemingly identical hair cuts and hair gel. Jake & Nath got Italian dishes and Deb and I split a burger.

Next stop was the Museum of the Collections of Tijuana. The difference between being a hoarder and a collector is organization. A fun trip through all the things, images, and toys of our childhoods. Eight track tapes to Barbie dolls to comic books. Also a big section on lucha livre wrestling and the action figurines that went with it. Think early black and white professional wrestling with lots of body suits and masks, lots of masks.  Then more walking through the outdoor and indoor markets.

Back to the house and Jake and Deb took Tyler for his evening beach walk while Nath and I caught up. A great get to know Tijuana tour.