Woke up and packed out bikes. The night before we had tried to hide Ryan’s shiny bike behind the green pig.
Had a great breakfast burrito, which included a Cockroach skittering across the floor. The guy at the table beside us stomped on it and splattered it on the tile floor, yet it kept wiggling around through the course of our breakfast.
The road up to Tiajuana passed a number of dustbowl towns. I can only imagine how lively they get on Friday nights.
We had heard about an old fishing vessel that had run aground and wrecked off the pacific coast in the 70s. It was still there to be seen. We found out the location and took some dirt roads to get to the coast. It was fogged in and make the rusted out vessel that much more impressive.
We took a toll road to make fast time getting to Tijuana (TJ). The toll road was smooth and fast, until it merged with the main highway which was bumper to bumper with old beaters and transport trucks.
I had always wanted to check Tijuana out, it has quite the reputation and I thought exploring in the day would be safe enough.
As we got lost in TJ it became apparent this isnt the best place to be riding around exploring. We ended up in a shanty town area that was built on two sides of a ravine. I didnt stop to take pictures, but for the first time in our trip felt unsafe. I read another bikers blog years ago who travelled around for 5 years in some very impoverished areas. His advice was that when your senses tell your something isnt right, its best to just listen to them, better safe then an incident. I stopped and talked to Ryan, we both agreed it would be best to blast through TJ and get stateside.
The border was a complete mess, 8 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic funneling into the border area. It was unbelievably hot and guys were walking through the lines trying to sell fruit, water and junk food.
The crossing was pretty easy with Canadian passports, and San Diego was a quick ride from the border. We grabbed a place downtown in Gaslamp district. I had stayed there before for work and it was walking distance to a lot of good restaurants and clubs for evening festivities.
We dumped our gear , went out for some food and ended up at the Strip Club. The Strip Club is not a ‘gentleman’s club’, but a steak house where they provide the meat and your grill it yourself with a cold beer in hand. Great place and highly recommended, although you leave smelling like you live in a smokehouse.
After steaks we went out in Gaslamp which turned into a pretty late night. Even ended up with a CD from one of the local buskers, his tunes didn’t sound as awesome the next day, but he was actually pretty talented.
Gaslamp District in San Diego