Posted by Farsider on March 15, 2001 at 05:41:29:
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I have been an avid lurker and infrequent poster on these boards since the middle of last year. I live on the East Coast, so opportunities to visit TJ are few and far between. Nonetheless, I've always had a fascination with TJ, and an incredibly fortuitous business trip to San Diego will allow me to make my first Zona Norte excursion the week of April 1. I've been to TJ twice before, but mostly due to ignorance, I wasn't able to indulge in the pleasures of the Zona either time. Thanks to the info I've gotten from these boards, this time will be different. Caution: long-winded reminiscing follows... My first TJ visit was back in March of 1999. I knew very little about the place, only that it had a "reputation". I had a day to kill after attending a business conference in Anaheim, so I decided to rent a car and head on down to check out the place. When I say I was ignorant, I wasn't kidding... I fully expected to drive across the border, with nary a problem (not to mention sans Mexican insurance) and find a place to park. The guy in the rental car place (who I now suspect was a diehard monger) set me straight, and told me to park at the border and take the bus, or to walk across and take a cab. I opted for the former. I got off the bus right in the middle of the Revolucion tourist district, primed for action. It was about 1:00 in the afternoon. You can probably see where this is going. I immediately saw the clubs on Revolucion, and as soon as I approached one, I was accosted by several of those omnipresent barkers. "Amigo! Come see the show!" Luckily, I viewed their over-aggressiveness as a I decided to pass on the clubs, got a bite to eat at Sanborn's, then headed north up Revolucion. The painted words along the top of the building near Calle 2 caught my eye: "Azteca Massage". I thought, maybe this will be more to my liking. But I wanted to make sure first. I went so far as to walk around to the entrance on Calle 2, and looked up the long staircase, hoping to see something reassuring. And, I'm ashamed I relate this story only because it serves to illustrate the value of these boards. I wonder how many prospective gringo mongers head straight for the tourist areas and wind up disappointed. Or, like me, they chicken out because of uncertainty and culture shock. Or, even worse, they get mugged or ripped off due to ignorance. But, as luck would have it, a second chance to visit TJ appeared out of the blue, in the form of a family vacation to California last July. I stress the word "family", for it ensured that all pursuits during this stay would have to be G-rated. About a month beforehand, with purely wholesome intent, I decided to It was pretty hard to go to TJ and not act on my new-found source of info, but family vacations are family vacations. As the bus to the border left the Mexicoach station and turned out onto Constitucion, I remember sneaking a peek up the street to see if So, after roughly nine months of anticipation, and checking these boards on almost a daily basis, I'll finally get a chance to do it right this time. I'd enjoy hearing from anyone who similarly had a long wait before experiencing the Zona for the first time. Was the reality of the place anything like the image you had beforehand? |
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