The Real Tijuana

Cleaning up the Tijuana River estuary by building homes for the poor

2011-12-01T16:49:00.001-08:00

While working in a Wildcoast event in 2009, Steve Wright was dismayed by the thousands of automobile tires he found cluttering the otherwise protected wetlands in the southwestern corner of San Diego County. He traced the tires back to their source and discovered that they were coming out of the barrancas of Tijuana, where maquiladora workers lead a marginalized existence. The tires are trash

History of the Cervecería de Mexicali

2011-08-04T16:54:00.001-07:00

This company was founded in 1924 and has installed its factory and cellars in a large, attractive building made of wood faced with American cement, which gives it an appearance exactly like granite. The latest advances in industrial chemistry and sterilzation have been incorporated into the manufacturing process of this beer, the raw materials of which are barley malt from the United States,

Baja's Visitor Assistance Hotline

2011-07-26T14:37:00.000-07:00

The state of Baja California comes up with some unusual ways to help its tourists. Toward the end of the twentieth century, it posted bilingual attorneys in the tourist areas to resolve visitors' problems free of charge. In this century it has made use of advances in telephony to give its visitors access to government officials around the clock. SecTurE, the State Secretariat of Tourism,

Reclaimed Recipes: Xocoatole

2011-06-10T14:19:00.002-07:00

The Popul Vuh teaches that humans, the gods' creation of the current Long Count cycle, were made from maize. (The creation of the previous great cycle, which was made of wood, spoke without understanding and so was condemned to spend this great cycle as monkeys.) We continue to acknowledge our origin by sustaining ourselves on tortillas, tamales, and atole even to this day, as our own Long Count

How to choose a dentist in Baja California

2011-03-21T01:15:00.004-07:00

You might be disappointed. Our advice is going to be pretty much the same as that for choosing a dentist in Outer Mongolia. On the bright side, our dentists are more plentiful and better trained than what you might encounter in Outer Mongolia. The first step in both places is to overcome the cultural discomfort of traveling for professional services beyond one’s neighborhood. “What if I pick

Mike, the unwily coyote

2010-11-06T00:20:00.001-07:00

Mike is one of Tijuana’s newer immigrants from the United States. He moved here during the twenty-first century. He recently found himself involved in what the law broadly refers to “human trafficking”. In our local slang, he was a coyote. Or, as he says, “I helped people get into the U.S. without all the red tape.”Mike had been a salesman in southern California who was “transitioned” into a

Baja’s Medical Ombudsmen

2010-10-21T09:54:00.002-07:00

Every culture has its own expectations concerning their medical profession. The ancient Chinese paid their physician every day they were healthy in order to be treated for free whenever they were ill. In Mexico, doctors tend to be extremely Hippocratic in their approach – the idea here is that people whose social position has allowed them to learn a great deal now want to help you feel better.

Yet another appreciation of tequila

2010-10-06T02:19:00.003-07:00

Although tequila does not come from Baja California, it is an integral part of our local culture. Tourists have been coming here for generations in search of it, so much so that a spring-breaker bar in Rosarito Beach once called itself (fancifully) The Tequila Museum. With the turn of this century, Tijuana has been setting aside a week in October to host an annual Expo Tequila. Similar festivals

Dollars or Pesos?

2010-09-19T20:12:00.003-07:00

Both work just fine. You can even use major credit cards. Baja has been using dollars and pesos interchangeably ever since it received its first tourist a century and a half ago. Pretty much everyone accepts both, although out-of-the-way places, which keep very little money in the till, might make change in pesos. Even the symbol that both currencies use, $ (for solidus and shilling), is the

Day-trips for alternative tourism

2010-08-13T21:12:00.004-07:00

photos by Derrik Chinn by Cristina González Madín What do you call a calafia bus full of gringos who visit the most surreal parts of Tijuana and who take part in our most ordinary activities? Turista libre. If the mental picture of this seems a little odd, we still have to mention that the fellow who organizes these day-trips is from the United States and lives in Tijuana by choice. Derrik

A few quesadillas

2010-08-06T20:44:00.007-07:00

The oldest published recipe for quesadillas, from 1831, is found in El cocinero mexicano. These are remarkably similar to the ones we still make today.Quick quesadillas Either make or buy small, soft tortillas. In the middle of each tortilla place some cheese, which can be fresh or aged cow’s milk cheese or even goat’s milk cheese if you add a bit of salt, then fold the tortilla in half and sew

Do I need a passport to visit Baja California?

2010-07-12T01:54:00.012-07:00

The simple answer for all visitors from the U.S. and for most visitors from Canada is No, you don’t need no pinche passport. Here at the border, we see people crossing all the time without one. Across the border, at Across the Border, Anna Cearley has been collecting up reports from readers whose experiences confirm what we say. And yet people continue to ask and the Internet’s self-appointed

Eco-Sol works to improve the environment and to develop ecological awareness in Baja.

2010-04-23T20:34:00.004-07:00

by Laura Durán Seventy percent of the land in Baja California is under environmental protection. Among the largest areas are Parque Constitución (Laguna Hanson), Sierra de San Pedro Mártir, the Biosphere Preserve of the Vizcaíno Desert, Valle de los Cirios, the islands in the Sea of Cortez, and the Colorado River Delta. Many xerophytic plants serve to retain soil and prevent erosion. Knowing

The tuna universitaria has come to Baja California

2010-03-27T18:40:00.006-07:00

If you’re in the right restaurant at the right time, something unusual will happen. A bunch of guys show up dressed in Renaissance clothes, carrying Renaissance instruments. They begin playing in bright tones and quick rhythms – possibly Italian, to gringo ears, but the lyrics are unmistakably Spanish – while the little guy with the tambourine capers theatrically.What happened to the mariachis

Tijuana’s health industry prepares for international competition

2010-03-09T12:36:00.009-08:00

by Laura DuránTijuana Health without Borders, the medical tourism business cluster that was created two years ago, now counts one hundred eighty organizations as members and has created the first academic program for medical tourism in all of Latin America.Today more than ever Tijuana is looking to develop its tourism. Not necessarily the leisure tourism of earlier years, because that has been

A new way to get border-wait information

2010-02-27T11:57:00.006-08:00

Crossing the border on 4 July 1920Perhaps the most annoying aspect of crossing the U.S.–Mexican border is the unpredictabiity of the Customs lines. Sometimes five minutes, sometimes five hours, sometimes caused foreseeably, sometimes capriciously. To anticipate this difficulty, every “frequent crosser” has their favorite source of border-wait information. Decades ago, the local radio stations

La Cantina de los Remedios

2010-02-12T23:09:00.002-08:00

photo courtesy of Cindy Mosqueda, loteriachicana.net If you can make it to only one restaurant on your first trip to Tijuana, that one may as well be La Cantina de los Remedios. It offers a quintessential Mexican experience that can serve as the keystone to understanding all the culinary arts of Baja. The menu is Mexican comfort food, the inspiration for all our alta-cocina/Baja-Med pretensions;

Aguilar and Castañeda come to Tijuana to say the war on drugs is a myth

2010-02-08T15:48:00.007-08:00

Rubén Aguilar (left) and Jorge Castañeda (right). Photo by Manuel Montoya. by Fausto Ovalle Rubén Aguilar and Jorge Castañeda unveiled their new book, El narco: La guerra fallida [The Failed War on Drug Trafficking], on 20 January 2010 at the Tijuana campus of the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIAT). The president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, used false assumptions to justify his failed drug war,

Cross-border pet adoption

2010-02-02T22:53:00.006-08:00

When Jessica and Evan moved to Tijuana, they didn’t plan on starting a charitable service. They came for the same reason that many have done lately – rents are high and incomes are low north of the border. They initially thought they’d live here while working in San Diego, but Tijuana had other plans for them. They started in an apartment and commuted across the border. That got old fast,

Everyone’s talking about Tijuana

2010-01-04T23:52:00.007-08:00

by Guillermo Lozano During the last year, Tijuana showed up in the news of the furthest and most unlikely parts of the world. Never in the history of the city has it received reporters from so many countries nor ones so distant. From the end of 2008 through 2009, journalists of eleven different nations came to Tijuana in order to file special reports. Sadly, they did not come to write about

Better-than-Baja Cuisine

2009-12-23T21:09:00.009-08:00

The Flavors of Rincón San Román, the first “serious” cookbook to come out of Baja, went into its second edition this year. Its recipes, which are given in both Spanish and English, come from the kitchens of the chef Martín San Román’s signature restaurants and are presented such that readers might prepare them easily at home. Back in the mid-1980s, when San Román first started cooking in

Longhairs go PoMo pop in Tijuas

2009-12-10T03:01:00.006-08:00

from the OBC gallery Entijuanarte always manages to pull off something iconic. This year’s memorable event was an open-air concert combining the efforts of Tijuana’s most respectable musicians with those of Tijuana’s most autochthonous musicians and ending with more than twenty-five thousand spectators shouting “Tijuana! Tijuana! Tijuana!” The event was memorable because of the performance’s

Rescuing La Revu

2009-12-03T23:07:00.002-08:00

by Laura Durán They would rather accept dollars but, when there are no tourists, the businesses on Avenida Revolución are out to attract local customers by offering restaurants, fine art, high-quality folk art, good prices in pesos, and improved customer service. With the reduction in cross-border traffic brought on by the terrorist attacks of 9/11, by the U.S. policy for its citizens to carry

Tijuana without your car, part 2 of 2

2009-11-29T16:31:00.005-08:00

Getting around TijuanaIf you walked across the border, you will now be on your own two feet in what is known as the Zona Federal. If you got off a bus, you will most likely be downtown somewhere. To get where you want to go, most likely you’ll be looking for a taxi or you’ll be walking.If you’re walking from the border, leave the Customs pavilion by the western turnstiles (on your right) and head

Tijuana without your car, part 1 of 2

2009-11-28T01:44:00.007-08:00

Getting to and from the borderPeople who have moved to Tijuana from southern California all mention the same thing, that their friends don’t visit out of fear of driving across the border. Well, you don’t have to take your car across the border. You can have a much better time if you do but that’s really a question of your own comfort level. Most visitors, it seems, would rather leave their cars