| Gary |
Feb 19th, 2001 03:43 PM |
<BR>Janet, Bob, et. al.: <BR> <BR>To quote a now-heroic poster on a lengthy thread from last year: "What a bunch of paranoid nuts!" Not safe? What were you planning? punching a cop in the mouth? The citizens of border towns crave visitors--that's one way they survive. If a traveler is from an area nowhere near the U.S. southern border, why try to scare him away from a visit? Granted, Tijuana is not the "real" Mexico--one needs a whole vacation to find that--but it's certainly not America, and if one is on a sightseeing trip, I don't know why he should be discouraged from visiting a border town, which, for any American citizen, is the very definition of an unusual sight. Tijuana is part tourist trap, part depressing--but, if one goes in with an open mind, it's a great experience. And the same can be said for San Luis Colorado, Los Algodones, and Juarez. I've had many great times in Mexican border towns--every visit is a lot of fun and very interesting. <BR> <BR>And by the way--comparing Old Town in San Diego with Tijuana is like comparing Disneyland with the Smithsonian--aside from the fact that both sell postcards, the two are wholly unrelated. <BR> <BR>One last note--if you've recently visited a border town, rent an old Orson Welles movie called "Touch of Evil." It's amazing (or is it depressing?) how little has changed in forty-five years.
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