We Make A Run For The Border

One thing my kids have often asked me is when they get to visit another country. I'm sure that on some level, they mean "travel overseas" and see exotic locations and famous buildings all over the world. However, we are not a glamorous, globe-trotting family (yet), and so we have to think smaller when it comes to international traveling.

As luck would have it, we happen to live just 53 miles from the USA/Mexico border. True, Nogales is not exactly a glamorous town; like many border towns, it's fairly seedy & crime-ridden. Despite cleaning itself up somewhat over the last decade, it's still a city I wouldn't want to stay in overnight. But still...Nogales is in another country, and that's what matters to our girls (for now)! So we decided to take a quick day-trip across the border this last Saturday. It would be Nathan & I's first trip together to Nogales in about eight years; and it would be the first trip ever for two of our girls! (We took Lorelai once when she was just a baby). We also went with our friends the Perrys; they've been to Nogales several times recently, but they were game for another trip.

 

The drive to the border is only about an hour; once there, we parked our car on the US side. From there, it was just a short walk across the border. It was a hot day (it was probably 100-plus degrees for the duration of our stay), but the girls were excited anyway.

I'm not sure if the girls were expecting a magical, exotic, fantastical world upon crossing the border, only to find out that it looks...a lot like America (at least in parts). For my part, I noticed that Nogales was a lot cleaner and more organized than it was the last time I visited. It smelled a lot better too! Brad and Amber told us they'd gotten to meet the mayor of Nogales recently, who had shared with them some of the details of the city's "clean-up" efforts, to improve its image and its tourism. It's still kind of gross in parts, but I'm happy to say I wasn't afraid for my children's lives while we were there...unless they strayed too close to traffic, of course (which they did a little too often for my liking!)

Nathan, as our resident "Mexico expert," led the way on most of our wanderings; we didn't have too many specific things planned, we just wanted to look around. We stopped by a few places to grab snacks, like a convenience store and a delicious panaderia...

Mmmm...that was one tasty concha.

We also stopped in a fabric store, so Amber could buy some nice fabric for cheap. While there, I found some early Halloween decorations out for sale. I couldn't resist picking this up:

Very cute! I'm not sure if I'll hang it on my door or somewhere in the house.

 

We did our shopping here and there throughout town. We picked up some small souvenirs for the kids, and Nathan loaded up on the Mexican junk food at the local grocers. By contrast, Brad and Amber bought some freshly made tortillas and some ears of corn from a street vendor. This caused Nathan to lament that his tastes for Mexican food are "stuck in his adolescence."

Midway through our trip, we took a break for lunch at a restaurant recommended to us by a local. It was called Lupita's, and it was pretty darn delicious:

My favorite part of the meal were the tacos dorados ("golden tacos"); they are small deep-fried tacos that were stuffed with spiced mashed potatoes, along with meat & onions. An unexpected taste, but a delicious one! Everyone loved their food. I was a little nervous that some of the food would be too "spicy" for the girls, but they enjoyed all of it. But their favorite part of this restaurant wasn't the food...

...it was this small band that played while we ate. It wasn't anything fancy; it was just two guys on a xylophone (a drummer joined them later in the set). But the kids could. Not. Get. Enough. Of. It.

They must have danced for fifteen straight minutes to this music. They applauded loudly when each song was done. They were so happy and having so much fun, it was almost easy to forget how much they were embarrassing us in public. For what it's worth, the musicians seemed tickled pink at the sight of all these goofy little white kids dancing to their music. Maybe they haven't had an audience so appreciative in a while?

I thought all the dancing would tire them out, but they managed to make the walk back without much difficulty, despite the heat. They even ran around like hooligans in the grocery store on the way back, thus embarrassing us some more! Kids...can't take 'em anywhere.

Since this was a family outing, we didn't venture too far off the beaten path. Maybe in the future, we'll be able to venture further into Mexico and show the kids some of the prettier parts of the country. Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) is a beach resort town a couple of hours south of the border. Nathan went there once on a business trip, and the pictures he sent back were amazing! We'd love the opportunity to sit on a beautiful beach in Mexico and just relax for a while. Maybe when the weather cools off, we'll consider it. Until then, this was a fun, easy way to give the girls their first "international" experience. I hope it marks the beginning of many cool international experiences for them.