Welcome to Tijuana

We had a busy morning getting to the border as we had to mail our cherished "Google Phone" (a phone with 3G for all our direction queries, awesomely lent to us by Ellen and Taras) back to San Francisco, pick up a few last things, get some US cash and then change it into pesos so we could buy our tourist visas as we went through immigration into Mexico. The border crossing itself went smoothly, but stepping outside into Mexico was a bit of a shock despite our attempts at preparing ourselves. The walkways were full of people also crossing into Tijuana, or selling things to those passing by with pop-up food and drink stands lining the way. Every inch of road was full of cars and taxis heading through the border or picking up those who just had just entered the country. It was noisy, and grimy and full-on. Apparently the Tijuana border is one of the (the?) busiest border crossings in the world, and that was quite apparent. We felt our way along the walking path over the river to Avenida de la Revolucion and pedalled through downtown Tijuana until we found a free city map and directions to a cell phone shop where we could get a Mexican SIM card for our phone and get our bearings for the journey ahead.Read more