**** I set off from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in July 2011...and ended up in Aspen, Colorado, in February 2012. Along the way, I visited 28 states, three countries, dozens of national parks, hundreds of cities and towns, and countless friends and strangers. Why? Why not? In fact, I lost my job of seven years when Berkshire Living, the regional magazine I helped launch, folded. Then my apartment building burned down while I was in Miami for the weekend. A breakup and a stolen bicycle figured in shortly thereafter. Wouldn't you hit the road, too? Enjoy my virtual scrapbook of anecdotes and eye candy from a freewheeling, cross-country, cross-cultural odyssey--past, present, and future.Amanda Rae Busch
amandaraewashere@gmail.com
![Time to get organized. (I miss having an office!)
[Tijuana, B.C., Mexico, December 15, 2011]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwa21fJ4xJ1qloi1ho1_1280.jpg)
Time to get organized. (I miss having an office!)
[Tijuana, B.C., Mexico, December 15, 2011]
While I was waiting for tacos at Mariscos Ruben in Tijuana yesterday, Marta asked me, somewhat perplexed: “You’re alone? You feel safe?”
“Si,” I said. “No problemo.”
She smiled brightly. “A lot of people from California won’t come down here—they are afraid, too dangerous,” she explained.
Maybe. I wanted to tell her that the decision might have more to do with the incredible hassle of trying to walk down a street without being accosted nonstop, but I didn’t. She probably already knows that.
Once I left her truck and stalked off across the city, I learned that the trick to avoiding the pestering is to simply avoid the hustle and bustle—i.e. main streets.
Also, wear sunglasses to better ignore would-be hecklers.
These Harlistas were too engrossed in their pretty machines to shout at me from across the street, further proving the biker code of coolness.
Finally, I found ornate Mexican architecture and colorful public art:
Ancient statues mingled with tourists passing chintzy souvenir shops:
And pharmacias competed for American attention on every block:
Nods to gringa culture are ubiquitous:
As is holiday cheer (and policía) on the main drag, Avenida Revolución:
Yet despite the crumbling structures and scum on every surface, the city did seem to be awash in rainbows:
The sun began to set and I sought escape…
It was time to get out of Tijuana.
Bill Esparza, street-food guru and blogger
Keep your head up, and don’t be a sucker.
Tacos in Tijuana
It’s not that I feel any strong attraction to, or vague interest in, Baja California, Mexico; I just wanted to claim a hat-trick in the category of Countries Visited on this fantastic voyage.
I figured that crossing the border into T.J. would be a fairly innocuous activity on a sunny Thursday afternoon; however, flashbacks to one wild ride through Tulum in a crackerbox rental last March made me think twice of driving south of the border in the White Wolf.
So, for five dollars round-trip, I took the trolley from downtown San Diego.
Fifty-five minutes, one long pedestrian footbridge, and nary a sideways glance from authorities at papers or a passport later, I stepped into Tijuana.
After five torturous minutes of relentless badgering—the broken-record shrill of “TAXI? TAXI? TAXI SENORITA?” and a cringe-inducing onslaught of catcalls and marketing pleas—I was ready to call it quits. My head hurt from rolling my eyes so much. Not to mention: dust, the grime. The loiterers.
I hopped on a bus to get across the freeway--as instructed by the nice man at the Tourist Info Center—and a little boy hung from the open doorway as we drove to the first, unmarked stop: a Costco parking lot.
This place sucks.
But I didn’t want to abandon my mission:
…and then get the hell out.
San Francisco Treat: Day of the Dead
Halloween, schmalloween.
November 2—Día de los Muertos, the fiesta macabre of Mexico—is the real holiday of strangeness in San Francisco, and I happened to be there for it yesterday. Again, sort-of by chance…..
I returned to the city for a meeting with a fellow magazine maven, after spending a couple days in Berkeley with my cousin, Brian, and had arranged to meet up afterward with French (above), an old friend from the Berkshires. The plan: catch up over beers with his buddies in the Haight.
Late-afternoon, however, I received this message:
“Switcheroo! Come to a Day of the Dead get-together followed by a procession through the Mission streets. Much more flavor than a stinky SF bar.”
Hmmmkay!
I was totally unprepared for what was about to happen. Dressed in semi-professional-on-the-road duds, I hopped a bus to a pastel address near Bryant and 24th, where in short order my new crew of seven was sipping red wine from ceramic mugs, noshing on bits of sweet bread torn from bone-shaped loaves, and sharing stories of spirituality and scandal.
Then we began our transformation en masse….
We elbowed around the mantlepiece mirror in Julie’s cozy railroad-style apartment, smearing black-and-white face paint onto our grinning visages—cautiously at first; soon with the confidence of art-school graduates—pausing every few minutes to snap photos and giggle maniacally at the results.
Never before have I felt so genuinely thrilled to look so incredibly hideous.
High-fives all around: we had morphed into a merry band of freaks in a matter of minutes.
When the neighborhood zombie crowd gathered at the distant end of our block had creeped past the streetlamps outside, we tucked orange and yellow marigolds into our hair, lit tall candles in glass vases decorated with mano poderosa (“powerful hands”), and whisked down the stairs to join the horde in all its ghoulish glory.
For the next several hours, we bobbed and weaved through a roving bevy of bizarre, morbid clowns, whose jubilant whoops and hollers to dark bongo-drum beats and bracing tambourines defied the morose garb and cartoonishly grim expressions streaked across their faces.
We were celebrating the dead, and—we hoped—sashaying with their souls.
A DJ death-message tree rolled among the revelry, pumping beats:
Parched from fantastic frolicking, we funneled into a corner bodega to quench our thirsts like proper Mexicans might:
Onward!
At the epicenter, flame throwers and stilts-walkers:
We wandered down Balmy Street—a mural-lined passage that reminded me of Art Alley—and discovered this scene:
A pair of weirdo pleasure-seekers staging photo ops, gratis.
I snapped photos as French and his lady friend bounced around on those strangers’ laps….and then I whispered, perhaps a little too loudly, “I want a funny photo!”
There was no escape. (Those hands!!!)
So we danced a magic dance…and I got butt-fondled by a crusty old hag.
Eventually, we made our way to Garfield Square, where we clipped our notes to those long passed on lines strung along the sidewalk.
And smiled wide, because we still have the future.
I DIE.
