Tijuana Saturday Night

Pasaje Revolución, connected to Pasaje Gomez, and Pasaje Rodriguez were more of the same as Gomez under OneBunk micro-hotel. Home-grown little shops, some selling coffee, some selling clothes, some selling comic book-related materials.

I'd seen a lot in the hour I'd been in Tijuana, so I sat down to chill for a bit in a new, upscale coffee shop down the block from Pasaje Rodriguez . The prices startled me after the 35 peso taxi ride from the border, but then, I've encountered this in other places too, where the price of a taxi seems geared toward a different standard than that of a latte. This was like taking a Lyft for $8 to the airport and then spending $14 on breakfast once I got there. We've been conditioned to spend four dollars for a mug of milk and hot water pressed through beans, but what we're really buying is atmosphere and wifi.

The wifi gave me access to Google Maps, so I noted the location of the artists market, finished my latte, and walked up Revu toward the famous Tijuana landmark arch. I passed a donkey painted to look like a zebra, some chain fast food restaurants, and a number of souvenir sellers, but I wasn't hassled. I took a right near the arch and found the Mercado de Artesenias.

I was looking for some pottery, but what I found was amazing and not terribly useful pottery. Lawn ornaments! Ceramic lions, parrots, bird baths...I wasn't going to carry a bird bath back to the border, though I still regret not finding a good source for ceramic zebras in Bangkok. I would've found a way to get those home.

Darkness fell as I browsed the stalls of the Mercado de Artesenias, and I struggled to walk back to Revu on my tired feet. I'd worn clogs as they're the most comfortable shoes I have with my high arches, but I was wishing for sneakers as I got to the Saturday night buzz of the main strip.

What to eat, though? It was time for dinner. I checked in with my phone and didn't see a really great answer. But eventually, Yelp pointed me to a tiny food court, Collectivo 9, which felt a bit like eating at the food trucks outside my Burbank office building, but it was enough. I just needed sustenance, so I could go back to my OneBunk room and collapse after a long day.