Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

Ciudad Juarez and El Paso might as well be one city, only separated by an international border. To the north lies the Texan city of El Paso, to the south, Ciudad Juarez, or Juarez, as it's known locally, in the north of Mexico. Their proximity is the main reason that creates the illusion of these two metropolises being united, as well as the frequency and ease with which people travel back and forth. That is more or less where the illusion ends. The contrast between the two urban settlements is very distinctive, though perhaps not as much as the contrast between Aranyaprathet and Poi Pet, or Johor Baru and Singapore, two other crossings which in some ways remind me of this one.

El Paso, though not extremely rich and certainly not the nicest city even in Texan standards, is still an American city, and so has many of the basic amenities one comes to expect in this country. Juarez, on the other hand, is clearly a third-world city, and this is obvious as soon as one exits the port of entry. Roads are poorly maintained, peddlers and beggars abound, and traffic is organized chaos. People drive haphazardly, not bothering to use turn signals, and applying their horns liberally. There are no curb cuts in sidewalks, as I found out to my chagrin, and pedestrians or cyclists do not have the right of way.

After only a few minutes in Juarez, I felt like I was in Thailand all over again. Despite the vast difference in language, my weekend here repeatedly reminded me of my time spent in South East Asia. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I admit that I didn't quite expect it. I'm not sure what I did expect, come to think of it.

Before coming south of the border, I had done some planning and connected with a few people to arrange my accommodation. I didn't want to bring my van down for fear of being searched on the way back, so I decided to ride my bike and actually couchsurf this time. Coincidentally, two of the people whom I contacted and who accepted my requests are friends of Rodrigo, at whose house I'm currently staying in El Paso while he is in Guadalajara.

Nicia took me in and let me stay at her hostel free of charge. Hostal 697 is the only hostel in this city as far as I know, and I was the only guest staying there. It is located about 10 minutes from the border, which makes it very convenient for travelers.
The first thing I did after crossing and before coming to the hostel was to bike over to El Equis, which is a large red x-shaped structure erected close to the border a few years ago as a monument to the crossing. The structure can clearly be seen from a distance in El Paso, and I initially thought it was on the US side.

At the hostel I was greeted by Nicia and two of her friends, who were hanging out in the kitchen. They offered me a glass of the most delicious tequila I've ever tasted, and some pumpkin pie, which was equally delectable. We chatted for a bit, getting to know each other, and were later joined by a few more friends. At the end there were eight of us, one of whom was Adriana, a friend I'd met a few days before in El Paso, and another was Israel, the second person who had accepted my couch request.

We went to a bar downtown called Kentucky Bar, which is supposedly very famous and dates back to 1920. This bar, as legend has it, was where the world-famous margarita cocktail was invented, though according to Wikipedia this event occurred in a different bar further up the road. We had a few drinks and some food, after which we went for a walk and stopped at a cafe. Afterward we made our way to a house party where a friend's birthday was being celebrated with a barbecue, drinks, and of course lots of Mexican spicyness. As soon as I walked in a shot glass was placed in my hand, filled with sotol, a local alcoholic drink, which had been spiked with rattlesnake venom. I sipped it warily, in part because I don't like hard liquor (the tequila had been an exception) and because I didn't think ingesting snake venom was a great idea. I'm still here to tell the tale, however, which is the important thing.

On Sunday morning Nicia made pancakes for breakfast for the two of us as well as Adriana and Alejandra, a friend. The day was somewhat blustery and overcast so our stroll to the weekend bazaar left us feeling chilly. We explored the Juarez market and then went in to get some lunch at a local restaurant. There the proprietor told me I would get the best coffee I'd ever tasted in my life. Café de olla is brewed in a clay pot, which gives it a distinctive flavour, and this is further enhanced with cinnamon and piloncillo, a type of candy made from sugar cane. The beverage was delicious, but it didn't taste anything like coffee, so my conclusion is that it wasn't the best coffee I've ever tasted since I wouldn't have had a clue what I was drinking had I been left in the dark about the nature of this concoction.

After lunch I went for a walk on my own and took some photos of the downtown area. Juarez teems with police and military-type personnel with large guns, and I asked a couple of these if I could take their photo. They declined but suggested I could pay them for it. This I declined in turn. Later I took a photo of another one of these types but he saw me and forced me to delete it. I thought to myself, I'm just a gringo tourist, I'm harmless!

After this unpleasant incident (at least my phone wasn't taken away from me) I was walking back and noticed a dog behind a fence. This creature looked absolutely miserable with a large bump on its face and blood around its eyes. It appeared to have been beaten. This made me sad and reminded me that in Mexico, life doesn't hold the same value as it does where I come from, non-human life especially so.

I said my goodbyes to Nicia around four in the afternoon, changed my pesos back to dollars (I had spent under $12 the entire weekend!), and headed back to the border. I made it back across unmolested, though an avocado and a pear were taken from me, which struck me as ironic since the majority of avocados in Canada and the US originate from Mexico.

My trip to Juarez had been a pleasant one overall, the people I met and who became my friends made me feel welcome and treated me very well, and the experience of visiting a new country was an educational one for me, as always.