Have you
been in the Juarez, Mexico? No? You lost quite a sight ... Juarez is a
very strange town especially after living in US.
Ok, imagine
this. We lived in New Mexico for almost a year already and we feel great
in the nice small clean(!) Las Cruces. One day in 1998 we went to El Paso,
parked there and walked to Juares. The border crossing is very simple,
you just cross a bridge and pay 25c for this. It feels very strange that
after you crossed the bridge you really in another country nevertheless
nobody looked into your documents.
Juarez
is very dirty and crowdy town. We felt very not quite comfortable there
after the clean Las Cruces, very big difference. At first it looks similar
to russian cities because there are many people on the street, a lot of
garbage around and so many never finished road constructions... But after
a while I started to think that it's better in Russia. In Juarez everybody
sells something and ask you to go inside. Even americans walk with giant
packages because the prices are much lower here for chinese goods than
in US :) Also the tobacco and spirits are cheaper especially tequila. We
tried couple time real mexican food and Mike really enjoyed it even on
the dirty streets. Also we visited some bakery that was much better the
one in Las Cruses. Mexican people know good food.
On the
way back you again pay money but americans check the documents on their
side of the bridge of course... Many people travel by car there but it
seems stupid because they stay in the long queue on the bridge; and also
the drivers in Juarez are not just not friendly but tough and your car
is at high risk there.