Tecate, Mexico

I know Tecate is not in San Diego County, it is in Mexico. But it is only 20 minutes from our house and that is where we went today.

The drive to Tecate is very pretty. You go through the rolling hills and mountains on a country 2 lane highway. You zig, then you zag and you go straight on flat ground, then you climb up a hill or mountain with guardrails between you and the valley below as you wind through some sharp curves, and then you are back to flat ground only to go around a bend and start hugging the side of the mountain again. Usually I avoid mountains with only guardrails between you and anywhere from a 500 to 4000 foot drop to the valley below. I did have to plead with Jerry to slow down around a few bends. I know, I know... those kinds of bends I only want him to be doing 2 mph around, I don't care that the sign says you can take them at 40 mph. Heights and I do not get along. The picture below is heading south to Tecate. If you look in the middle of the picture you will see a thin grey line going up the side of a hill -- that is part of the same road we are traveling on.

San Diego County is so pretty. I love the hills, the dirt, the natural grass and the weeds even. The picture below shows some ranches tucked away in the hills. Now that I have this blog, I want to travel every nook and cranny of this county and share it with you through the pictures I take. But.... I don't know if I will be able to handle the sleepy towns tucked away in the mountains -- at least getting to them will be the problem. Those posts I can't promise you. We will have to see how brave I get.

But Tecate I have for you. The picture below doesn't show the houses up very well, but they are on the side of the hill in the distance. That is Tecate, Mexico.

Below must is Tecate, California... the trucks and I think that is a mobile home close to us.

This is where you come up to the border crossing. I was surprised at all of the semi trucks in Tecate.

All we had to do was to stop at the gate. Then we were flagged on into Mexico.

After you pass under the border crossing entrance, you go down this hill to the downtown area of Tecate.

Tecate, Mexico is in Baja California. Just across the border on the American side is Tecate, California which I think consists of about 6 homes, but the census says 100 people live there! (See 4 pictures above). Because Tecate is much quieter than Tijuana or Mexicali, you get a better idea of what a real small Mexican town is like when you visit it. The major business in Tecate is a brewery for Tecate Beer which is famous in Mexico and in California. In 2005 the census says there were 59,124 people living in Tecate. In October 1892, Tecate first appeared in the record books of the Mission of San Diego as an agricultural colony.

Driving through Tecate was not bad. We have driven through Tijuana many times and it is amazing we made it out alive or at least in one piece. The drivers are crazy in those cities! Tecate was busy, but peaceful. We passed several small elementary schools. Each school had their own uniforms, and the schools were pretty.

Bone up on your spanish before you go so you can read the road signs!!

How's these for advertising? Better than looking at graffiti sprayed on them!! They are cement road barriers.

Some streets have parks in between the traffic going different directions. This is a good way to prevent head on collisions!

This is the famous brewery. The sign on the tall building says "Tecate".

The brewery stretches along quiet a few blocks. You can see that it fades in this picture... you can't even see the end of it! This is where most Tecatens (is that a word?) work. This is on the other side of the brewery than the picture above.

Most of the residential streets are right behind the business streets. The residential streets are very narrow that only one car can drive down them at a time and most you can only travel one way on. On this street was one of the nice looking elementary schools. It was tucked behind some very pretty flowers and green vines growing up a wrought iron fence.

As with all Spanish towns and cities, Tecate has a beautiful plaza in the center of town. The citizens gather here to sit quietly and look at the fountain (see below), or they sit at picnic tables and play checkers, eat or just visit. The plaza was very clean. In fact all of Tecate is clean. I did not see any trash on the roads. There are blue trash containers on every corner and several up and down the sidewalks on every side of the streets.

Here is the pretty gazebo in the middle of the plaza.

The local hotel:

with an outdoor eating area. Sorry the picture is fuzzy... it was on Jerry's side of the car on a one way street. This hotel and eating tables are on south side of the plaza. Those are red and white striped umbrellas over the tables.

We had to circle the block several times for me to get a good picture of this Catholic Church. I thought it was beautiful. Each time we went by it, elderly and middle age women were coming out a few at a time.

Solid doors and woodwork look so quaint with the white wrought iron along the front brick wall.

Time to start heading back to the good old U.S.A. This is the turn to get onto the road that leads to the border crossing.

I don't know what this stone is a marker for, but thought I would take a picture of it and decipher it another day. One of my goals is to start studing in my Spanish textbooks I own and relearn the language. I can remember some from high school, but not enough.

The wall straight ahead with the writing on it is the wooden fence that seperates Tecate, Mexico from San Diego County, U.S.A. Some of the writing is advertising, some graffiti.

In this picture you can see the brown border fence as it goes up the hill to where the border station is. I did not take a picture of the border station because Jerry said he didn't think the Border Patrol Officers would be too happy with that.

The sign says "Welcome to California!"

If you go right it is more steep mountainy roads that bend and curve and wind until you get down to the desert floor and El Centro. Left takes you back the way we came. I wouldn't go straight.

One of the windy roads with a guardrail protecting you from the dropoff on the other side of it.

This is a little village called Barrett Junction. They do have one small cafe that is famous for their Friday evening Fish Fries. I think the cafe is all of Barrett Junction's downtown district.

Remember the picture on our way to Tecate that I said the little grey line was part of that road we were traveling on? Here we are coming down that little grey line and looking ahead to part of the road I took the first picture on. Got that? We are almost to the flat part of that road though.

This is near a town called Dulzura. I love the countryside of San Diego County. We are curving around the base of a tall hill here.

How would you like to live in one of those houses up on that hill?