Alonzo and I are excited about the wedding and to see the family of course. The trip east from the left coast is a day-killer. We need to leave the house by 8am to cross the border at San Ysidro by 10:30am for our 12pm flight. We arrive in PVD at 10pm- so that's pretty much a day gone. Flying and reading. wheee.The holiday weekend was nice- hot and sunny. Alonzo's mom helped me cook and I made a chocolate "tres leches" cake for Alonzo's birthday. She always makes my favorite Tomatillo (green) Salsa for me (photo to left). The Shrimp Louie was perfect- and everyone enjoyed it. The beach was less packed than usual- which isn't a good sign for a tourist town. Sunday was Mexican Election day and the town was "dry" of alcohol- so that didn't help the clubs and tourism.
No matter- last night the next wave of police killings began and that will take care of the rest of this summer's tourist business. The Narcos took the holiday weekend off at least. This time the Narcos are threatening to kill police officers until the Tijuana Police Chief resigns. The police body count is 3. It would be higher if the cops weren't too afraid to put on their uniforms and go outside. Baja Nomads has the news links and commentary over there. I'm not shy about posting the ugly warts of the area- just not here this week. Wasn't the dead puppy bad enough?
There is no accurate real-time news here. We get our news from each other or on line. The english language paper was chased out of town and the Mayor owns the only other one. The Mayor also owns the Rosarito Beach Hotel and a half-sold condotel project. He blames the US media for the tourism decline here- not the police killings, not the kidnappings, not the extortions, not the beheadings, not the world economic slowdown. Tourism in San Diego is down 31% too- but they don't blame Mexico for it- although they well could. We call it "Mexico SOS" (stuck on stupid). No one plays the victim better than Mexico. They built a bronze statue in Mexico for the boy who was the first swine flu victim hoping to promote tourism- seriously stupid. They build a shrine to the swine flu and then complain when the cruise ships cancelled their Mexican port calls for a few months.
We are hoping for a quiet day here so we can pack and make it out of town as planned in the morning. We expect there to be a few army checkpoints we need to pass through leaving town. The house and animals will be fine while we are away. Alonzo's Mom and Emilios family will be staying here and the dogs love them. No one messes with Alonzo's mom. Emilio is on guard duty and has college-aged friends in the neighborhood- and that helps with overall security. So do the alarms, cameras, tasers, dogs and guns.
Many years ago we took my Mom and Dad down here to Tijuana and Rosarito for a day trip. We hadn't purchased this lot yet- but were already shopping for land planning to build this house. We did the touristy lobster thing at "Puerto Nuevo" and shopped the streetside shops for "chingaderas". They liked Rosarito very much actually- but I wonder how they would feel today about us living here. If I could do it over again- I wouldn't, but you have to live with the decisions you make it life.
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