Viva La Mexico!
Over the Labor Day Weekend, Donny and I took off to Yosemite National Park. It was extremely relaxing to get away from the traffic, the people, the rat race and smog among other things, and into nature. It's been over a year since we've made the effort to plan a camping excursion. There are a couple of reasons why we haven't been making too many treks. For instance, San Diego is located in the most southwestern corner of the United States and you almost inevitably have to drive through Hell A (most of you know it as L.A.) to get to the good parts of California. Additionally, in order to beat the traffic you have to leave between the hours noon and 1:30 p.m. or expect to sit in some MAJOR delays (we're talking hours and hours people).
Mexico, on the other hand, is a hop, skip and jump away, but the border wait coming back from T.J. is hellacious. Just picture a mass of people attempting to play to your sympathetic side by a) washing your car with a rag that has clearly not been cleaned since it was dug out of a dumpster, b) holding a "baby" which is actually a bundle of blankets with a brick in the middle or c) selling an assortment of tacos probably made from a stray dog/cat/insert other animal.
When a couple of friends joined us on a surfing/camping trip to La Fonda, Mexico, we watched a particularly disturbing site on the wait to cross back into the States. We had been slowly moving up to the border patrol agents and until that point, had been in the car for about 1.5 hours.
It is hard to describe the "scenery" that one experiences while waiting to cross the border. People sell everything from water and food to giant sized statues of Mary to an assortment of WWE wrestling masks. The closer you get to the crossing, the more concentrated the efforts to make a sale become. There is also no escape from the bombardment of the different array of people and products, which eminently causes sensory overload. Besides the vendors, the sheer mass of cars waiting to cross the border is overwhelming. Crazy Californian drivers do not hold a candle to the chaos of Mexican drivers. Using your blinker is completely useless and you're better off just to crank the wheel and hope that the person in the dented 1980 Pinto doesn't hit you. There is no such thing as "lanes" either. You just have to hope that the line of cars you're following leads to the USA. We didn't help our cause any to due to the fact that our car reeked B.O., camp fire, booze and dirty clothes. Finally, the gates that would lead us out of the circus came into view.
At the same time, another site caught our attention.
There was a man, who I am assuming was mentally challenged. Whether he was born that way, contracted a disease or the resulting impediments were self inflicted is not known. At first, he was looking into the car windows of everyone waiting to get past the border patrol agents and talking some sort of gibberish. He started knocking on windows and really getting up close and personal. As we started creeping closer, the man proceeded onto another task.
He was attempting to unwrap a 20 pack of Wrigley's Spearmint Gum. This, in and of itself, is not a reason to become concerned. Until that is, he spent 20 minutes just wrestling with the packaging. Like a car wreck, we couldn't take our eyes off of him. Every once and a while he would tear off a little piece of wrapping, which would subsequently stick to his fingers. Then he would drop the gum on the street and violently shake his body in an effort to rid the plastic of his fingers. This whole scene replayed itself like a bone crushing hit on Monday Night Football, which the commentators insist on viewing over and over again.
After nearly 2.5 hours of sitting in a rancid smelling automobile and witnessing some more than unique events, everyone in the car was about to start tearing chunks of their hair out from the lack of physical movement and the bizarre environment. And, of course, we picked the f-ing slowest line, with the border patrol agent with the biggest ego.
FINALLY, we made it out of the Twilight Zone.
Mexico, on the other hand, is a hop, skip and jump away, but the border wait coming back from T.J. is hellacious. Just picture a mass of people attempting to play to your sympathetic side by a) washing your car with a rag that has clearly not been cleaned since it was dug out of a dumpster, b) holding a "baby" which is actually a bundle of blankets with a brick in the middle or c) selling an assortment of tacos probably made from a stray dog/cat/insert other animal.
When a couple of friends joined us on a surfing/camping trip to La Fonda, Mexico, we watched a particularly disturbing site on the wait to cross back into the States. We had been slowly moving up to the border patrol agents and until that point, had been in the car for about 1.5 hours.
It is hard to describe the "scenery" that one experiences while waiting to cross the border. People sell everything from water and food to giant sized statues of Mary to an assortment of WWE wrestling masks. The closer you get to the crossing, the more concentrated the efforts to make a sale become. There is also no escape from the bombardment of the different array of people and products, which eminently causes sensory overload. Besides the vendors, the sheer mass of cars waiting to cross the border is overwhelming. Crazy Californian drivers do not hold a candle to the chaos of Mexican drivers. Using your blinker is completely useless and you're better off just to crank the wheel and hope that the person in the dented 1980 Pinto doesn't hit you. There is no such thing as "lanes" either. You just have to hope that the line of cars you're following leads to the USA. We didn't help our cause any to due to the fact that our car reeked B.O., camp fire, booze and dirty clothes. Finally, the gates that would lead us out of the circus came into view.
At the same time, another site caught our attention.
There was a man, who I am assuming was mentally challenged. Whether he was born that way, contracted a disease or the resulting impediments were self inflicted is not known. At first, he was looking into the car windows of everyone waiting to get past the border patrol agents and talking some sort of gibberish. He started knocking on windows and really getting up close and personal. As we started creeping closer, the man proceeded onto another task.
He was attempting to unwrap a 20 pack of Wrigley's Spearmint Gum. This, in and of itself, is not a reason to become concerned. Until that is, he spent 20 minutes just wrestling with the packaging. Like a car wreck, we couldn't take our eyes off of him. Every once and a while he would tear off a little piece of wrapping, which would subsequently stick to his fingers. Then he would drop the gum on the street and violently shake his body in an effort to rid the plastic of his fingers. This whole scene replayed itself like a bone crushing hit on Monday Night Football, which the commentators insist on viewing over and over again.
After nearly 2.5 hours of sitting in a rancid smelling automobile and witnessing some more than unique events, everyone in the car was about to start tearing chunks of their hair out from the lack of physical movement and the bizarre environment. And, of course, we picked the f-ing slowest line, with the border patrol agent with the biggest ego.
FINALLY, we made it out of the Twilight Zone.
posted by Martha | 2:59 PM
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