San Diego, Tijuana, and Rosarito Beach -- November 18-23, 2003

^{This trip is rated 5 little globes out of 5 on the Globe-Trotting Globe-o-meter.}

We spent a few angst-filled days working at a customer site in Del Mar, just north of San Diego, then squandered the following weekend in  San Diego, Tijuana, and Rosarito Beach.  We tried to stay out of trouble, and largely succeeded. 

Lake Tahoe from 33,000 feet

Yosemite - El Capitan in the lower left and Half Dome to right of center

Downtown LA

Landing in San Diego

Tio Leo's Mexican Restaurant in Del Mar - right next to the Hampton Inn where we camped for 5 nights.

Having finished up our work at the customer site in Del Mar, early Saturday AM saw us heading south on I-5 to San Ysidro and the Mexican border.  We parked at the Border Station Parking Lot and jumped on the Mexicoach bus headed for Tijuana.  After a few false starts, we finally headed down into Mystical Mexico, and landed at the beautiful Tijuana Tourist Terminal, where we were dazzled by the stunning array of tacky trinkets targeting tourists, then ventured out onto Avenida Revolucion, the main tourist drag in Old Tiwanna.

It didn't take long to spot the much-touted Iguanas-Ranas at the corner of Avenida Revolucion and 3rd.  The plan was to return for dinner and t-shirts later in the day, which turned out to not be such a good idea.

We had read about "The World Famous Zebra Donkey of Tijuana", and sure enough, we spotted him on a busy street corner.

But then, amazingly enough, right on the next block, there was "The World Famous Zebra Donkey of Tijuana" all over again!  Ended up that we saw no fewer than 5 "World Famous Zebra Donkeys of Tijuana" - and sad to report that it looked like it was brown shoe polish that transformed these every day donkeys into the famous zebra donkeys.

On the Mexicoach heading for Rosarito Beach - "the Jewel of the Pacific".

The newly-purchased Tijuana hat.

We threw gastro-intestinal caution to the wind and dined on fajitas and Dos Eques at a questionable dive called The Tequila Safari - all tastelessly done up in an African Safari motif - for lunch on the main drag in Rosarito Beach.  Then it was back on the bus and back to Tijuana for more shopping and the much-anticipated visit to Iguanas-Ranas, where we headed up the stairs and were overcome by the techno-hip-hop-disco-rap tripe they were playing at 180db.  Seems that after dark Igunas-Ranas becomes THE hot spot for those of youthful persuasion in Tijuana.  Seeing us make our escape and listening to our shouted explanation, the sidewalk barker escorted us a few doors down the sidewalk to a more sedate, not go say entirely geriatric, restaurant, where a dinner of burritos, more fajitas, and another round of Dos Eques settled quite nicely astomach.