For me, Tijuana was a different type of destination than the places I’ve been visiting on this nomadic journey. I lived 11 and a half years in San Diego from September 1999 to March 2011. San Diego and Tijuana are two adjacent cities separated by a political border for those who may not know.
In 2002 I started Black Sea Storm in North Park San Diego as a side project. In 2005 I began releasing my music online under the brand name Black Sea Storm. In 2018 and recording and releasing music, the project evolved into becoming a nomadic never-ending tour adventure. So me being in Tijuana with Black Sea Storm was, in a way, making the story go full circle as to almost coming back to the place where the Black Sea Storm adventure first started.
While living in San Diego, I had visited Tijuana only a couple of times before September 11th, 2001. After that day, I did not feel like going to Tijuana because the border crossing process started progressively getting more strict.
Now I was going to experience Tijuana from a new angle. Yes, it was a place I had visited before, but now I was much more familiar with the rest of Mexico, which provided me with many points of reference to put the city in its national context. An important factor was also that now I was fluent in Spanish. In 1999 I wasn’t even fluent in US English, and I didn’t speak Spanish at all.
During winter 2017 in the southern hemisphere, I was already dreaming of starting a nomadic life; my itinerary’s blueprint for this project was to travel from Buenos Aires up to Tijuana. Although things did not go the way I initially envisioned them, four years later, I was finally going to make it to Tijuana.
Early Morning Arrival
On March 3rd, 2021, I arrived at the Tijuana bus station early in the morning after a long ride from Guaymas Sonora. Not having a cellphone plan and not finding free WIFI at the terminal, I decided to take a cab to the beach area of Tijuana. A good portion of the ride was parallel to the wall. There were moments I could see parts of San Diego downtown from far away. While waiting at red lights, I would see street signs with San Diego written on them and the Interstate 5 logo. I was excited, and at the same time, I was feeling a bit sad knowing that I could not pass the border as a foreigner in times of pandemic.
Lately, I’ve been dry-fasting during all my travels. I had been fasting for over 40 hours on this trip from Sonora to Baja California. Fasting makes traveling much easier for me. I don’t need to go to the bathroom during the trip with all my belongings. It also allows me to avoid consuming any unhealthy food during the journey.
After leaving my bags and my guitar in the room I was renting, I saw a juice stand at the intersection of the street I lived on and the main avenue. I took advantage of the situation to break my fast with some delicious freshly made green juice. After finishing my chlorophyll-rich beverage, I decided to explore the neighborhood. The room I was renting was located a couple of blocks from the beach. It was a rainy day. Despite the weather, I decided to walk towards San Diego, hoping that I would hit the border at one point.
For years now, I have wanted to have this romantic moment of getting as close as possible to San Diego. I did not know what exactly motivated me. I first perceived it as paying tribute to my past, celebrating the place of birth of Black Sea Storm. But it could very well be that I needed to go through a funeral-like process to get the remaining nostalgia out of my system. To say goodbye to something I still deeply love that I would probably never experience again.
I have such a passion for San Diego because it allowed me to accomplish many things that mattered to me. Although I was a pretty motivated person during my youth years, I was having a hard time achieving something at a level that would satisfy me while still living in Switzerland. All the things I was involved in would require a tremendous amount of effort to get little results.
When I’ve made it to San Diego, things started to happen naturally. People were not prejudiced against me, and there were tons of opportunities available. Most importantly, people in the US weren’t in semi-vacation mode. It felt like they wanted to grow and accomplish things for themselves.
Everyone I’d meet seemed to be supportive. I could harvest the results of the efforts I’d put in almost immediately. In the process of living more than a decade in San Diego, I’ve met the most interesting people and made life-lasting friendships. Every time I think of San Diego, it puts a smile on my face.
At The Border
After walking for about 15 minutes, I’ve made it to the border. It was interesting to me how there was life and commercial activity on the Mexican side of the wall, and on the US side, the beach portion right after the border looked like a noman’s land. Beside’s a border patrol truck parked on the beach; there was no human presence.
I took a few pictures exploring the site near the wall separating the two cities. I realized that the area on the Tijuana side was a fantastic neighborhood with tons of cafés and restaurants. It was the right decision of mine to book a place near the beach. I could not go to San Diego, but the beach and the ocean were the same on both sides of the wall. It felt amazing to be there, although it was a rainy day.
After having my farewell moment with San Diego, I decided to focus more on Tijuana and enjoy it as much as I could. Tijuana did not look and feel like any of the cities I had seen so far in Mexico. It reminded me of Istanbul of my native country, in the sense of people from all regions of the nation being represented in a single city. Not only on a cultural level with different types of regional businesses but also the physicality of the people. It felt like there were people from all the states of Mexico living in Tijuana.
Freshly Opened New Business
On my way back home, I saw a seafood joint named Marisquería Barca. I had not eaten solid food for about two days. I decided to go to that restaurant and eat. It looked like they had opened the place few days before my visit. I ordered a soup, and later on, some quesadillas. After finishing it all, I was still hungry, so I ordered one more bowl of soup and the same set of quesadillas. It happens to me quite often; when it’s time to eat after a fasting period, I will eat three or four portions. The people running the restaurant showed some genuine interest in my journey and what I was doing. In addition, they were soccer geeks. We ended up having the best conversation as I was enjoying my meal.
Barcelona played La Copa del Rey, and those guys’ analytical skills and their knowledge of Barcelona were pretty impressive. I was sitting in between the TV and other passionate customer watching the game. It was a bit difficult to follow the game and talk to the people at the same time. I decided to get it going and let everybody watch the game in peace. I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and came back to pay the bill. When I asked the owners how much I owed, they said, “-Don’t worry, you are traveling. “-Today, everything is on us.” I could not believe it!
I asked them if they were sure because I had four portions of food. That was extremely nice of them, but I felt terrible not to pay since I had eaten abundantly. They told me not to worry about it that it was a pleasure for them to invite me. Their gesture deeply touched me, and I was surprised that something like that would happen to me in Tijuana. We weren’t in a small village in the countryside. We were in a big city next to the US border. I thanked them and made a note to come back to the restaurant to support their newly opened business.
Time Pressure
I was running against the clock to make it to Guatemala before my Mexican visa expiration date. I had about three weeks to make it from the northern border of Mexico to its southern counterpart. For that reason, I only had one more day booked in Tijuana before heading south of Baja California. It wasn’t an ideal situation to explore different parts of town. Instead of running around acting like a tourist, I decided to stay in the Beach area. Luckily the next day was sunny. I went to a park nearby to exercise and run on the sidewalk seeing the beach from above. It looked like I wasn’t not allowed to go on the beach itself, but the sidewalk was well put together with the best view, so I did not feel like I was missing out.
Second Day in Tijuana
After my morning exercise session, I went back home to shower. When it was time for me to eat, I wanted to go to that same seafood restaurant, but the store was closed. I was a bit disappointed not to eat there, but I was more disappointed not to support the business. It was such a nice gesture of the owners to invite me the day before; I wanted to return the favor. I ended up going back to the beach area near the border and have seafood in one of the touristy restaurants with an incredible ocean view. I’ve made it to the restaurant a couple of hours before sunset. I could see the US and Mexican sides of the beach and the ocean. I had the opportunity to lose myself in deep thoughts, and reflect on my past and my future watching the beautiful view.
I could not have enough of the view and be close to San Diego. I had thought that my farewell process was over the day before. Still, in reality, my entire stay in Tijuana ended up being about that farewell to San Diego and enjoying the beach area. After dinner, I went back to the border wall crossing the beach. I took some more pictures, and lastly, I went to a café with a terrace to watch the sunset with a hot beverage in my hands. It reminded me of my first job in the US working as a Barista at Mission Café in Pacific beach. Mission was located right on the boardwalk, and we, as the baristi, had the best view of the beach and the Pacific Ocean from above the espresso machine.
Time to Leave
The next day, it was already time for me to leave Tijuana. I went for a jog in the morning, and on my way back, I wanted to see if there was anyone at the seafood restaurant to at least say goodbye. One of the owners was doing some prep work. I told him that I was about to leave and thanked him for inviting me for lunch the other day. It was too early for me to consume anything, and since I was going to travel, I was already in fasting mode. I felt terrible again that I couldn’t make that business earn some money directly, but as a firm believer in karma, I am sure that the universe will return the friendly gesture at one point.
I wish I could have stayed longer in Tijuana. I was not expecting it to be that exciting of a city. What I loved the most about Tijuana was that it had its own identity. It did not feel like a border town, and I did not feel as much of the US influence as I expected. As if most of the people living there were trying to make it happen in Tijuana, and it wasn’t a sort of waiting room for people to eventually cross the border one day. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for me to revisit Tijuana during one of my next trips to Mexico and do justice to all the great things the city has to offer.
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