Part 3...Tijuana/San Diego

Since a bunch of people have been bothering me about this, I thought I should continue the story. I'm at work...this means I'm sober...so this might not be as entertaining as usual. If you don't enjoy it...tough poopy. : )

I believe we had just caught a cab to the La Paz airport at the end of blog 2. This was uneventful. Get to the airport really early (Jess and I seem to do this a lot for some reason), and get a beer and some food. Before you check in for your flights here, you put your bags through a big screening machine. And then push a button attached to a huge stoplight. Green, you're good to go. Red, you get bumrushed by security. No, I'm not kidding. Anyways, we're both green, luckily.

After that, we come across 2 other mexican security guys who manually search checked baggage. You'd think the SCREENING MACHINE might cover this one...but nope. Of course, they spoke zero english. I didn't check any bags, so I was ignored. Jess, on the other hand, had to play charades with one guy for a few minutes. After a whole lot of hand signals and the word "shave" repeated about 70 times, the guy figured out Jess has an electric razor, no blades..and we were good to go, once again.

Get to the checkin counter finally...this guy speaks english. YES. Get exit row seats. YES. The guy at the next counter starts pointing at me and saying something in spanish to our checkin guy. NO. He repeats our last names to him. NO. The mexican dude keeps pointing and asking something. I'm starting to get worried. Then, in broken english...he asks if I'm "Fitzgerald". Umm...no...why? OH...I'm wearing a Larry Fitzgerald jersey...and this little guy thinks I play in the NFL.

Ya know...Larry's 6'3...I'm 6'6. Close there. Larry's bout 230. I was a long time ago. I'll give him a pass on that one. Larry's black. I'm white. Check please...

After all that, we get to our gate. The La Paz airport is huge compared to the Bellingham airport. It has 3 gates! Eventually our plane comes, and we sit down in our nice comfy exit row seats...me on the aisle, Jess by the window. About 8 seconds before takeoff, there's a mad mexican scramble. All these little guys RUN from the back of the plane, and jump into every exit row seat possible, including the one between Jess and I.

This makes zero sense to me. The tallest one in this group is 5'6, tops. What the fuck do they need extra legroom for? They could just prop their legs up on the tray table in front of them, stretch out, and have a fucking nap. Instead, poncho wants legroom, and both armrests. Him and Jess threw elbows for most of the trip...which was pretty funny, actually.

So we eventually arrive in the land I've heard so much scary shit about....Tijuana. Our goal is to get to San Diego in the safest manner possible. The guy at the greyhound window speaks no english. Great. All the other shuttles look pretty pricey. A cab to the border was 18 bucks...so we decided to go that route, and walk across. Apparently this is common. Lonely Planet said so.

There are cabs everywhere outside. And, for some reason, there are ticket windows for the cabs inside. 3 of them, all staffed by really really loud senoritas. All right next to each other. I walked within 20 feet of them, and they all started screaming at me...TAAAXXXXIIIIIII!!! Okay, I get it...the huge TAXI sign gave it away. I asked how much....they all said 18 dollars at the same time.

They're all the same price? Why the fuck would they even compete with each other then? And why yell so much?

Ahh, the million unanswerable questions that is Mexico.

So we find a cab, pay the guy who arranged the cab (not the driver...odd) and set off. Into the depths of hell. We ended up going down all these side roads...over speed bumps...through the ghetto of all ghettos. I've never seen anything like it. I was sure he was taking us somewhere to relieve us of our bags, money, and existence. We were skirting the border I guess, cuz a huge fence covered in barb wire extended as far as the eye could see. I'm not gonna lie, I was worried. Jess was too...I think he peed a little.

Eventually the driver stops, in front of a group of guys. He says "San Ysidro" (the border town on the US side), and we get out.

I don't see no border crossing.

Right away, a guy starts talking to us. Apparently, they're cab drivers. Umm okay...I just got out of a cab, dipshit. The first one tells us that walking across the border will take 2 1/2 hours, and he can drive us across in 5 minutes. This sounds like bullshit to me....so I just walk away. Jess follows me, reluctantly. I have absolutely no idea where I am, but anything seemed better than hanging out with Vatos Locos Forever over there. For once in my life, I guessed the right direction. After 2 minutes of walking, VOILA...I see the border.

The whole walkway is lined with stores...some duty-free, some crafts, pretty much some of everything. In 0.5km of walking, at least 15 people asked me to enter their store. I declined 15 times. Jess decided to duck into the last duty-free store, and bought the bottle of expensive tequila he was looking for. And it was actually cheaper than he saw it in Cabo. Score.

After we leave there, we walk around the corner to see a huge lineup, snaking away from a building. That stupid cabbie was telling the truth. Odd, didn't look like any border crossing I've ever seen. All these people had luggage too, which seemed weird. We walked up, and realized everyone in line was mexican. Everyone. Odd again. After a couple minutes, Jess realizes this isn't the border...it's some sort of immigration stop mexicans have to make to get into the US, I guess. So we kept walking.

Eventually, we reach customs/immigration. There are about 12 people in line in front of us. In about 2 minutes, I'm speaking to a border guard.

*Tim hands passport over*

"How long were you in Mexico?"

"3 da"

"Go ahead"

"ys..."

That was it. I was amazed. Jess didn't even get asked about his tequila when he came through. It was the easiest crossing into the US I've ever experienced, by far.

2 1/2 hours to walk across? FU Pablo. The best part was there was a HUGE car line...it probably took...oh, I dunno....2 1/2 hours to get across by car?

As soon as you step out of the building in San Ysidro, to your right is the San Diego trolley line. After going 2 stops too far (my awesome navigational skills went right back into the tank), and a short cabride, we were at our hotel. The glorious Super 8. A TV! Wireless internet! Soap! CIVILIZATION!

We got cleaned up, and went looking for food/beer/bitches. Just kidding Jamie...just food/beer. Found a liquor store, bought beer. Dropped that off, then went looking for food. Ended up walking all the way back to the trolley stop (it's not really a trolley...more like the skytrain). This was located next to a mall. An open air mall, in fact. A super nice open air mall. I'm not a mall guy, but this place was pretty cool. Grabbed food from the wetback taco shack, or something similar. Jess has a fish taco.

Why is that important? Oh...you'll find out soon.

Rest of the night was just vegetating, drinking some beer, and planning the next day. Zoo time, bitches! Oh yeah, we also watched The 40 Year Old Virgin, which Jess had never seen. AHHH KELLY CLARKSON! I love that movie. Juhl, you know how I know you're gay? Cuz you like Coldplay. YES!

Wake up. Zoo time. Go to the lobby, and ask them to call us a cab. There's a van shuttle out front, he says he's a cab, and he'll take us to the zoo. Umm...okay. 16 bucks for 3 miles? Seems a bit pricey, but whatever. Get to the zoo, Jess goes to pay by credit card for us (I had to get cash inside, since there were no ATMS outside), and the guy tells Jess they have some special for Canadians on that day...it saved us like 10 bucks. I love San Diego!

Apparently, we picked a really hot day to go to the zoo. Even with the sunscreen we bought...I got pretty burned. On one arm, for some reason. And my face looked like my Cards jersey.

We walked around till we were exhausted (yes, I lasted further than 20 feet inside the gate, jackals), and Jess took some awesome pictures. The meerkats were the best. If you dunno what that is, google it. Anyways, there were a bunch of em just chillin, till a park employee came by, said hi to them, and jingled her keys. They ALL came running over to her. It was soo cool. Jess got some sweet pics of them. I want to buy like 20, and let them live in the yard. Yeah.

Anyways, once exhaustion set in, we took the bus that travels around the park (part of the Canadian special!) and relaxed. The chick driving and commentating cracked a good joke:

"These cats over here are very friendly when they're young, but once they get older, they're like engineers...they're just not very social."

Jess didn't find that very amusing.

Near the end, we drove by an area with some birds...the lady asked if we knew the significance of this particular bird...the jabiru stork.

Well duh. "THEY BRING BABIES," I said out loud.

Drumroll. No laughter. Even Jess just groaned. Fuck you, that was funny!

After the zoo, we took a cab back to the hotel. 16 dollars, 20 cents. Wow, Habib in the van shuttle WAS pretty accurate. Back to the mall...more fish tacos for Jess. Don't worry, I'm gettin to it.

While I'm drinking a few beers and watching TV, Jess is playing on the net. He gets up, without saying anything, and goes to the bathroom. Unfortunately, I didn't have the sound on the TV very high, and I had the bed closest to the can. What I heard next can't really be described well...the closest I can come is saying it sounded like a water balloon hitting a wall. Ewwww. And Jess yelling DAMN! sure didn't help.

An hour later, KABOOM, he's back. 2 hours after that, and so on. It was...well, gross. Why am I telling you about this? Cuz dammit, Jess will hate it!


Next day rolls around. Jess was gonna go to SeaWorld. There was no way in hell I was gonna pay 51 bucks to see a whale. I can look in the fucking mirror, and that's free. Eventually, he agreed that it was not worth nearly that much, and we decided to check out some more of SD. After Jess laid waste to the bathroom.

First stop was Old Town. Walked through it...mildly entertaining. Stopped for a beer and some food. Nuthin much to say bout this. Next, we decided to go to Coronado. It's an island, just across from downtown. It's also the location of a huge navy base. The ferry ride over there was really cool...passed by an aircraft carrier, which is now open for tours. Got onto the island...and had no idea what to do. The base was on the other side of the island, and we had no idea how to get there. So what do we do?

Go to Taco Bell. Where Jess laid waste to the bathroom.

After sitting around in another restaurant for a bit, not knowing what to do...we took the ferry back. Woo. Luckily for us, the ferry had to take a detour, and stop at...the navy base! Sweet! So we got to see a few cool ships and stuff.

Back on the other side, we went for a walk into the Gaslamp quarter, and stopped at a Wendys. Where Jess laid waste to the bathroom.

I knew this area of SD pretty well, since I've stayed down there a couple times. So we walked around some more, then eventually headed back to the hotel.

We didn't wanna go back to the mall for food again, cuz Jess was worried he'd get Hep C or something. Jess looked on the net for other suitable places...and found a Hooters. Sweet! We walk over to the Hooters...and there's no Hooters. I guess it closed. Dammit. So we ended up at the Valley's Death Diner or something, where a little mexican lady with no Hooters served us. Good food...but the eye candy left a lil to be desired.

I got more beer, Jess got imodium. Back at the hotel, I drank beer, Jess popped imodium. I finished beer....Jess laid waste to the bathroom.

Jess would like me to point out that he's not the slayer of toilets I make him out to be....he's a washroom connoisseur.

Sleepy time was early, cuz we had to be up at 5AM to catch our flights to Sacramento.

Thoughts on Tijuana...*shivers*. Thoughts on SD...I still love it. The people are nice, transit is good, beautiful city, the weather is cooperative...and it killed Jess. I love it.

Notice how we didn't go to ONE bar in SD? I know....what a travesty! I did manage to drink at least 30 miller lites though, so I didn't feel left out or anything.

Once again, bitch, if I missed anything, let me know.