Strange and untrue though she may be, Tijuanenses nevertheless love their weird little child, as much as San Franciscans love Alcatraz, New Yorkers love Times Square, or Los Angelenos love their freeways.
For better and for worse, "la Revo" is a symbol of this border town, an icon of "the world's most visited city." Even her name, "Revolution," seems fortuitous, inviting rebellion and wild life -- yet that too, is a lie. There is no revolution on Avenida Revolucion. Oh, there IS plenty of Plenty of PLENTY of PARTYYYYING but no revolution. That was institutionalized many decades ago... heh heh small inside joke. Party.Revolution.Institution... oh never mind. This is all PAN country anyway around here. Well, mostly... so far.... (Shut up, Danial and write.)
The police cruise up and down in their squad cars and special forces pickups, ready to intervene at any sign of fighting or "real" disturbance, and throw the miscreants into the trucks or back seats. These police regularly shut certain blocks of the street to vehicular traffic on Friday and Saturday nights, and on holidays of special merit, even more force is displayed -- like Halloween 2000 -- Michael and his friend Maria saw army trucks of armed soldiers cruising up and down the avenue to forstall any outbreaks of "revolution." In a fit of creative madness, Michael said to a couple of decked out soldiers (complete uniform, combat helmet, automatic weapons) "Ay, your costume is really excellent!"
The look in their eyes said everything back. Stupid gringos don't make fun of us in the army eh... and then they smiled when they finally understood us.
In early 2002, a new set of soldiers in grey uniform, from the federal justice ministry, descended on Tijuana and for months were on the street every day in groups of two to six or so, carrying their automatic weapons under their arms. So then in the Year Two we had soldiers in green and grey and brown, as well as cops in brown and black and navy blue. Or perhaps we exagerrate. Shoulda Come and see for yourself. The tourist, as always, is VERY welcome... if you don't misbehave very much.... (Bring Money, of course.)
It was kind of touching to watch all these young kids from God knows where down in the south, half-Indians a lot of them, loose on the streets spending their paychecks on electronic equipment fresh from the Otay Mesa maquiladora factories or off the boat from Korea and Japan... one began to see human beings with folks back home, under the grey federal uniforms that spoke so much of the power of Tenochtitlan the modern Aztec empire of New Spain....
And then just as suddenly, as the newspapers screamed NARCO BATALLION DISAPPEARS the soldiers went away. And, meanwhile, not by coincidence or anything, the new chief of police and a bunch of his officers all got arrested by the AFI (Mexico's "FBI") and swept into a cargo plane that flew off to Mexico City where amidst more screaming headlines they passed a few days in the capital cooler before being released for lack of evidence. Ooops, sooooo sorrrrryyyy Charlie.... Starkist wants tunas that taste gooooood.....
But to get our feet back on the ground, here on this page, we mean, La Revo suffered a serious slump after "9/11" but things had almost begun to get back up a bit when ALL the marines and sailors in San Diego county were sent to Iraq.
COME HOME SAFE AND SOON boys and girls...
Your business would be very much appreciated, and there is a lot to see and eat and drink.
2. The Nature of the Controlled Beast.
With all the bands and jukeboxes blasting on top of each other, Revolution Avenue may sometimes look and sound like a street of madness and out-of-control lunacy -- la calle de la locura -- especially in the blocks between Fourth and Seventh Streets. But don't believe it -- that appearance is a delightfully rowdy masquerade, a mask of wildness to attract the crowds and urge them be free with their purses and spend their money. Behind the revolutionary mask, everything, Everything, EVERYTHING is a Carefully Controlled Climate of -- B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S -- .... (and most prices are higher here than elsewhere in town -- except for Sanborns, which is the same throughout the known universe).
Yet, la Revo does not fail in her mission: she upholds (?) her reputation: she provides escape and entertainment in her shopping and her bars and restaurants, and her sidewalks make a truly unusual and entertaining place to promenade. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of locals and foreigners, Mexicans and Gringos, Japangos, Gabachos and Chicanos and Paisanos cienporcientos, all flock to Revolution Avenue for diversion and fun, to eat, and to drink, and most important: to walk up and down the street and talk, and see, and be seen. It is the ultimate postmodern paseo of the frontier. Definitely a place to walk and see. Definitely a paseo. A promenade.
Generally speaking the center of the madness is in the three or four blocks from Fourth to Seventh. By quirk of planning, these are also the shortest blocks, and walking the entire length of the avenue gives you a strange feeling of long stretches interspersed with brief outbursts, an impression partly fostered by the change in block-size at its heart. Just another one of the weird truths of this place.
From seventh or eighth -- where the Jai Alai palace sits across from the big disco club Las Pulgas (hot Mexican banda music), the avenue uphill becomes a little milder. The cocktail lounge in Sanborns (entrance on corner of eighth is a sedately rocking place on weekend nights with their one-man band singer, and the restaurant is, well, palatable. The store stocks bits and pieces of everything and is very popular with the local bourgeois and both new and old rich. A place to see and be seen. Good selection of books, although some hold it politically incorrect to shop there. Whatever the world will end with a bang or a whimper....
South from eighth the street is less insane, and finally bends left past Eleventh toward the beginning of Agua Caliente Boulevard, aka "the" Bulevar. Here where Revo ends and the Bulevar begins, you will find a very pleasant park (reasonably safe in the daytime and early evening, but no guarantees after ten or so). This park is the current site of Tijuana's favorite symbol: the old (rebuilt) Moorish-Spanish Tijuana Tower (copy of now-destroyed ex-Agua Caliente tower), which proudly sits dreaming of mythical gambling and drinking days amidst tall trees and roaring traffic. The original tower was designed to serve as an airport beacon in the late 1920s and early 30s at the Casino private airstrip a couple miles out the boulevard (where the twin skyscraper towers are now, FYI).
You can actually walk under the tower -- it sort of stands on stilts, as you can see at that site about the old casino etcet. Upstairs in the rebuilt tower is a museum of local sports heroes, sometimes open. This is a good spot to rest your feet after walking. Although the park is reasonably safe, it is surrounded by busy busy streets. Please be very careful crossing the multiple lanes going in seven different directions... eye contact. Eye contact. THEN RUNNNNNNnnnnn!!!
At the opposite end, downhill (north) near the gigantic millennium arch, the street is still hopping but not quite as screamingly loud or packing them in as it is in the short blocks between 4th and 6th. Here, between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, facing the Arch, the city has recently rebuilt new, broader sidewalks and narrowed the street, cutting down on automobile cruising and leaning toward more pedestrian experience. In the course of laying down the new sidewalks this year (2003) they actually buried ("decommissioned") hundreds of drug pipes siezed from the very stores who... but that is another story... and one that reminds us of how the Aztecs and Mayas used to bury ritual offerings every time they rebuilt their temples. But we are Mexilocos looking for ancient America, after all. Eye of the beholder, what? What.
3. The Nature of the Visiting Peoples/Clientele.
Depending on the hour, the tourist hordes come in two broad categories: the day crowd and the night crowd. Their also tend to be a number of certain groups who stand out by their behavior. The white and/or black U.S. tourist, short pants and t-shirt with someone vomitting beer, and the ladies with their hair but no ugly t-shirt... heh heh of course they are wearing shirts!!!! Just not a vomit t-shirt. Then there are the chicano men and boys come down from L.A. with tatoos and sweeeeeet looking s on their arms. Then the orientals who look like they only came to check out their factories that make more television sets than anywhere else on the planet but meanwhile let's go see Revolution Avenue... there ever are shops with signs in Japanese, now.... And occasionally you hear a little tilt of Cuban accent or something European.
The day tourist, generally speaking, is more family-oriented, more interested in shopping and eating. The night tourist is more singles-oriented (although often arriving in a dated couple or tatooed, shaved-head pack with one or two retro-hippies in tow) and certainlyyyyyyy way more interested in partying than shopping although some shops stay open late to tempt them with hugeeeeee straw sombreros and fake Tequila-I.V.s....
Both types, the day crowd of many colors and the night groupies of shadow and light, both crowds walk up and down the ten block stretch of Revolution, from the big metal arch towering over the corner of First, at the Hotel Nelson and Plaza Santa Cecilia with its mariachi musicians and (gateway to zona norte watered down drinks and wh0rez), eight blocks up toward the Jai Alai palace, transvestite corner, las Pulgas Mexican disco, and Sanborns' island of bourgeois chic.
In between stretch seemingly endless doors into arcades, stores, bars, restaurants and hotels, punctuated by "zeburros" -- a word we had to invent to describe those famous Tijuana landmarks, the donkeys painted with black and white stripes and standing around infront of gaudily decked out donkey carts, watched over by those antique box-camera photographers. If you actually come HERE to Tijuana, they will greet you with their cameras from the last millennium and help you climb up onto their donkey carts decorated with ancient Aztec princesses and warriors etcetera and then happily snap your souvenir photo while the donkey nibbles on doggy chow chow doggy chow chow cha cha chow chow crunck crunch crackle snap pop (but only during the day... the zeburros all go away in the evening to sleep in canyons and we know where yes we do know where we do we do know where the zeburros go to sleep at night...).
Okay, Mikey, let's go have another drink now....
The sidewalks are perfect for promenading -- almost broad enough to hold both the crowds and the vendors. On busy nights the police close portions of the avenue to vehicles, which makes for less-smoky walking as well as easier crowd control. Not to mention that this past year the City government has begun to rebuild the touristic zone sidewalks and host occasional concerts in the street under the giant metal arch or up the street in front of the Jai Alai palace....
Many of the arcades -- those hallways of shops so fascinating to explore off the avenue during the daytime -- close up their stalls and booths at sunset, folding their tents and throwing the focus solidly back onto the sidewalks. Tis the daytime tourists who tend to buy more souvenirs. The nighttime tourists are looking more for drinking, dancing, and other forms of "entertainment."
But now we are starting... or continuing, ha ha... to repeat ourselves. Time to fold this tent and bid you wander elsewhere through our own little wonderland of cyberspace xibalba... mmmm or better yet, come and see the real thing. We are certain you will agree it is somehow... not... quite really... real.......
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Gringo : Touristic Information
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