We set out from San Diego for the border around 7:30, hoping to get into and out of Tijuana in short order. Fantasy. First of all, none of us really looked at the precise directions to the border corssing. It should be simple, right - Mexico is that way -->. Mas alla. It was in fact simple, but we must have all had the jitters - but after a bit of a run around we took the new pedestrian bridge to the turnstile out of the USA. A few ramps and bike wheelying maneuvers put us down in Tijuana. We were in Mexico. But wait - nobody asked us for our passports. Don´t we need a visa or something? We parked the bikes and sent a delegation - Carol and I - to investigate. Ultimately we sort of snuck back half way into the US past armed guards who realized somewhat late what we were up to and kind of awkwardly ignored us while waltzed past with half raised hands to show we at least were harmless idiots if nothing else. We found a desk, got our papers, warned the guard that a couple more idiots had to come through and that was it. We were in.
After a conference over a Tecate in the nearest plaza we decided on a tentative route through the city to get on the Scenic Toll Road. We had mixed data on whether or not bikes were allowed. We gave it shot. >Riding happily along the wide road with an eight foot shoulder with a gradually decreasing quantity of glass, we thought we had done it. Nope. A guard stepped out and politely informed us that we could not be here. After a moment he informed us that though we could not go through at this point, we could go up a mile and sneak onto the road. Thus we found ourselves joyfully breaking federal law within an hour of arriving, skirting a broken barb wire fence to get back on the road to Rosarito. We arrived just before sundown, had some tacos and got a large room for the not so modest price of $550 (pesos) - around $50 dollars.
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