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In the Navy, when you stop in San Diego, it pretty much automatically means a trip across the border. This involves a bit of a commute; from base, you take the bus to the Old Towne Transfer Station, then take the train to the border (San Ysidro), a 45 minute leg of your journey, and finally make your way through the crowd across the border. If you prefer a quick 20 minute transit to the border, you can take a cab, but be warned it will cost you around $50. Still, once we arrived in sunny Tijuana, the people we met were generally warm, friendly, pretty liberal with the tequila, and very helpful when it came to separating us from our money so we wouldn't get into trouble elsewhere; they preferred it if we got into trouble right there, where they could profit from it.
Some new friends who kept us entertained at lunch (this picture was taken at dinner, actually, when they ran across us again at a taco stand) I don't know enough Spanish to even competently order dinner, but I know a little about music, and these guys were quite good.
24 hours spent in Tijuana can result in a lot of things; this time around, it almost resulted in hypothermia. We got a hotel room for US$36 (for the three of us!), but for that price, certain frills were missing... like windows. Allow me to rephrase that -- the Hotel Arreola (Yes, that was its real name) actually had windows, just no window PANES -- a not entirely unattractive plastic shower curtain was all that separated us from the 40 degree air and loud dance music outside. Under that blanket, I'm wearing jeans, socks, a tee-shirt, sweat-shirt, and jacket, along with covers and a Navy-issue watch cap. Richard (the mummified one beside me) was insane to try to sleep like normal, clad only in boxers (maybe that pelt of his is sufficient insulation. *shrug*)
A note about the food: forget what you think you know about Mexican food, because the stuff you get in the typical US Mexican restaurant is nothing like what people actually eat every day in Mexico. A taco in the US bears little resemblance to the soft corn tortilla wrapped around slowly roasted pork, chicken, or beef, with a sprinkling of chopped, raw onions and a healthy smattering of cilantro, sold 3-for-$1 from little stands all over the place. Churros are not fried leftover strips of flour tortilla, sprinkled with sugar, but rather a fried batter dropped into blazingly hot oil from a star-shaped extruder, then either rolled in cinnamon sugar or filled (since they're hollow) with either chocolate or caramel. INSANELY GOOD, and for $0.75 apiece, a cheap snack on what turned out to be a cold afternoon.
A view from the small boat that took us from our holding point into Ketchikan, Alaska. The view from the back of a boat taking you away from a submarine is always the best.
The sign says it all: a tourist destination, if ever there was one. Well, it is about 60% of the year, and this just wasn't it -- by the time we pulled into shore at around 3:30 PM, found the hotel and dropped our stuff off, we had about an hour before EVERYTHING closed, if it wasn't already. Who wants to go to Alaska in the winter? *shiver* The majority of the stores were closed for the winter, and many of them had even vacated the premised completely, signing for a new lease somewhere and setting up shop anew in the spring -- why pay rent for a place you're not going to open for four or five months?
Still, it's quite a colorful town, if a little empty in February. It enjoys a rich cultural heritage from its Russian settlers and Inuit native tribes, a bountiful landscape filled with natural resources, wild fish and game abound in the hills and channels all around the area. Wooden sculptures and totems were scattered throughout the town, and you run into this stuff pretty much everywhere you go.
One of the guys chartered a plane, and he said that the scenery in the area is really breathtaking. At the time, I was just so happy to be on dry land again that I spent most of the afternoon at the hotel bar, sharing a platter of nachos with some of the guys and knocking back a couple of cups of coffee spiked with this-and-that. Had to try the oysters -- the area's known for its seafood, so why not? Small-to-medium sized little gems were presented to me on ice, and were slightly briny and quite bright in flavor -- perhaps related to the Quilcene oysters we get at Ivar's Salmon House in Seattle? I'm no expert, but I loved every one of them (and didn't have to share much, because most of the other guys didn't care to "... eat something that came out of the spit cup at the dentist's office." *sigh* Sometimes, it's simply impossible to live the good life when you're in the Navy; it's hard enough even being bohemian.
There's a little shopping to be had in Ketchikan; in all probability, there's a whole lot of shopping to be had during the tourist season. A few standard products are always available, however -- ulu knives (curved, single-edged utility blades with a handle mounted against the back of the blade, used for cutting pieces of meat held in the hand or even in the teeth), smoked salmon, stuffed animals in sweaters of varying styles and colors. There is also a natural history museum in town, which gives an overview of the natural resources to be found in the area and human's impact on the region, and numerous art galleries (which were closed... a recurring theme in my visit to Ketchikan -- better luck next time, I guess).
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