A new Mayor came into power on Saturday who says things will get better. Time will tell. As far as the border area itself, most of the people that I've heard about that have had trouble with "police" walking back have been by themselves. If you have cash, hide it.
Every year Tijuana has an outdoor street fair during the Christmas season. It's held (near the Cathedral) on Niños Heroes between First and Second. (They are setting up the booths as I write.)
There are lots of food booths plus booths selling all sort of merchandise. One year I had a glass blower make some custom figurines which I gave as gifts.
In Tijuana I think of the Christmas season as starting with the holiday celebrating the Virgin of Guadulpe (on December 12th) and ending with the Three Wise Men's Day parade (on January 6th) in Zona Rio.
If you have the chance I recommend checking out some of the local events. I always do and find the holidays the more enjoyable to these experiences.
From other recent posts [and a big article in today's LA Times] I have the impression that this is also an exceptionally bad time to go down and risk getting ripped off or worse. It sounds more risky in potentially serious ways for US tourists in TJ and Baja than i have ever seen or heard about before.
A new Mayor came into power on Saturday who says things will get better. Time will tell. As far as the border area itself, most of the people that I've heard about that have had trouble with "police" walking back have been by themselves. If you have cash, hide it.
I've been down plenty so i know that kinda stuff pretty well i think.
But the LA Times article talked about different stuff than i'd ever heard about before there.
A car with a family driving back from Ensenada pulled over on the highway by a car with lights flashing like a cop. Husband was ready to pay a $40 bite and go home. But it wasn't real cops. It was a gang in masks with guns drawn; took all their money; took the car. I haven't heard about anything like that down there before. It sounds way worse now than ever before. Here's the LA Times article:
Yes I did actually know about that and the sexual assault. But thanks for the posting. A couple of things on those. The Hall family was pulling a marked racing trailer from what I recall. So that would fall under the, Expensive trucks, trailers and boats have been carjacked, part of the article. Not sure how many tourists would actually fall into that category. Times are tough down there and they see a big payday. The sexual assault, was more of an out of the way place I believe. From what I recall, there has a breakdown or something which caused them to pull off the road, where they thought it was out of the way and safe for the night. Hard not to feel bad for the couple. Sure it's probably not as safe down there as in the past. But you also have to do what you can not to set yourself up. Drive the ol' Ford Pinto you might not be noticed by the bad guys, but the Cadillac Escalade, the bad guys are more likely to take notice.
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