ciclistas fronteristas: Playas of Tijuana

Since our bicycle tour starts at one ocean and ends at another, we were excited to follow the tradition of dipping our back tires in at the beginning of our journey and our front in when we arrive at our destination. However, we for some reason wanted to wait until we were really heading east, since our first couple days were along the coast, so we didn´t dip our tires while in California. But, we didn´t know then that we were going to be staying so far east in Tijuana (Maclovio Rojas is almost 20 miles from downtown Tijuana) and we really didn´t want to ride back through the hectic streets of TJ, so we figured our only option was to remove our rear wheels, throw a bag on the free wheel so we didn´t get ourselves all greasy, jump on a bus, and head towards the ocean. And, of course, the best place to do that was right on the border wall, at Parque de las Playas, the Beach Park, which is adjacent to Friendship Park in San Diego, where we stood just a week before.

In writing about Friendship Park last week, I forgot to say that Mrs. Pat Nixon was at the inaguration of the park back in August of 1970 and she was quoted to say, ¨I hope there won´t be a fence here too long¨ and ¨I hate to see a fence anywhere.¨ (See here for more) The First Lady of Mexico, Margarita Zavala, came to this side of the border only this last February and inaugrated the Parque de las Playas. (See here for more)

On the U.S. side, as I wrote before, you can´t even go into the park without following a bunch of restrictions and can´t even really get close to the border wall. On the Mexican side, you can go right up to it. I even almost wiggled through it at one spot. Also, the U.S. side is not often visited and really quiet, while the Mexican side is really inhabited and frequented. It looked like a nice beach town with a boardwalk and vendors--the only thing strange in view was the wall.