Tijuana trip today. Got picked up at hotel at 8.30 am and taken to depot where all the Starline tours go from. Got on my bus and it was a 2.5 hr drive.
Tijuana is right on the Mexican border and San Diego is not far from the American border. When we got there we had to walk over the border. You don't need a passport to get into Mexico but you definitely need it to get back into America. We got instructions of where to go and what time we would be picked up then was every man for themselves. We had to walk about 10 mins to the street where all the shops are. This is the tourist street. It reminded me a bit of Egypt with every shop trying to coax you in and saying G'day mate in their best Aussie accent. You also had to haggle just like Egypt, I did ok but probably still got stitched up. There are a lot of chemists here and even they hang out the front of their shops to get people in. Viagra seems very popular here.
Had lunch in a Mexican restaurant. I sat on the balcony looking over the street it was very nice. I had a Mexican plate which was a mixture of items like beef, rice, beans, tortilla's and guacamole. They brought out chips and dips and salsa first, the salsa was amazing really fresh and lots of cilantro. Then there was a Tortilla soup, which was pretty good. Then the plate came out. Glad I asked for my steak medium as this was well overdone. No pink whatsoever. The reft of the plate wasn't very nice either. Luckily I still had chips and salsa so I filled up on that. I sat for a while though as it was nice on the balcony and caught up on these blogs.
It was about 2 pm and bus didn't leave until 4.15 pm so had some time to kill so after relaxing for a while I took another walk along the shops and went into the town a bit further but stopped when I was the only NON Mexican left.
Went back to meeting point at 4.15 pm and we got in taxis to go back to the bus. There were 5 in my taxi and we went first. We were supposed to wait where the taxi dropped us but our taxi went to a construction site. We waited for 10 nine and no other taxi came so we headed to boarder control to hopefully meet the rest of the group. But they were not there so we waited another 10 mins and then the other 4 of my taxi went through the border to the bus and would come back for me if the rest of the group were there. After another 10 mins and no one came for me or the other group still hadn't shown I started to get a bit worried that I was going to be stuck in Tijuana for the night. Anyway I thought I would just go to the bus and the other 4 from my taxi were still not through the border. They had sent 1 of their kids back to get me but they got stopped without there passport so there was a bit of a fight. The Dad must have had a go at border control because they came and took him for a quiet chat and all the way home he sat on the bus away from his family and looking a bit upset. Anyway the rest of the group finally turned up and we found out that we were probably in the right spot originally and we shouldn't have moved. Went through border control and got questioned very sternly where I was going and why I had been in Mexico but got through ok.
Got back to hotel about 8.45 pm and packed ready for leaving tomorrow.