US-Mexico Border: tijuana

Desperation runs from monotone hills like the sewage that collects in dry riverbeds at the bottom of Tijuana’s steep ravines. This Mexican frontier city is bursting its seams with activity. Street traffic, drug traffic, and human traffic from all points south and further abroad. Men and women who have traveled thousands of miles wait to climb over high iron walls. They play hide and seek with US border agents armed with infrared cameras and all-terrain vehicles. Mexican police arrest undesirables who have come to scrape off the last bits of meat from the border’s bones. Drug lords gun down Quixote cops who don't accept hush money.

Amidst the poverty and dirty underworld, tourists swell the Avenida Revolucion where vendors sell plaster statues of the Virgin Mary and Bart Simpson. They sell Viagra and Vicodin, pork tacos and black-light Hendrix posters.

Tijuana is rich in many ways, despite miles of shanty-towns. Rich with gringo dollars, Colombian cocaine and the opportunities that come with sitting next to the world’s wealthiest country. Geography is both a blessing and a curse. Visitors are welcome, but walk a straight line or risk a treacherous fall.