“Nothing to see here”. Visiting Nogales Mexico

Visiting the border at Nogales was light years away from my experience at Calexico. First of all, I went across the border into Mexico to take photos of what the wall looked like from the other side and ended up exploring a tiny bit of Nogales MX. Now I wish I had crossed the border at Calexico so I could make a better comparison.

On the Mexican side I came across an old photo of what Nogales AZ and Nogales MX looked like before the wall. Unlike Calexico/Mexicali which obviously was one town before the wall, the two Nogales were separated by a wide empty space and what looks in the photo to be a demarcation fence. Pretty flimsy and not much of a barrier.

All the streets near the border were filled with parked cars, so I parked in a lot for $5 and walked to the ramp leading down to the international border station, a huge concrete building squatting in the middle where there was once a flimsy fence.

A very bored young Mexican woman at an inspection station waved me through. And within a minute I had my photo of the Mexican side of the wall.

I had hardly gone 20 feet beyond the revolving gate before a man asked if I wanted a pharmacy. As it turned out, the first two streets were almost nothing but pharmacies and dental clinics side by side. These were clearly a major business in Nogales–at least at one time. Apparently not these days.

These first couple of streets are what I have long called the “wolf zone”. They exist at border crossings into Third World countries and at European train stations. Usually some guy–I think of him as a wolf–tries to get a cab for you, which is driven by his cousin who will take you to his uncle’s smelly hotel. At least that’s what I understand happens. I’ve always avoided them. If I want a 2 or 1 star hotel I can find it by myself! Okay, back to Nogales. From here on the photos are chronological as I wandered around Nogales, MX.

I suspect the tall, white hotel, below, was intended to house Americans who cross the border for dental and medical treatments. In the foreground are the almost empty streets. It was a Thursday, so maybe that is not a good day for patients or tourists? Or maybe people are reluctant to visit Mexico these days. The hill in the back is a residential neighborhood in Nogales MX.

As I was waiting in line for an hour to go back into the U.S. I thought about a conversation I’d had with my first Airbnb host. She worked in an upscale fashion store in San Diego and said that after Trump began blustering about the wall, business at the store plummeted by over 20%. But, she said, it had come back partially. And I heard a report here in Tucson that business in Nogales, Arizona had not suffered too badly last year; it had only declined by 7%. Pecan farmers who have orchards not far from Nogales are really in dire straits because of the tariff increase on pecans which they used to sell almost exclusively to China. They have almost no sales there this year. And then there are the empty streets in Nogales MX…

As you may have noticed, there is no photo of the wall from the U.S. side. I eventually got one. When I finally made it to the customs guy, he had difficulty believing that I had just gone across the border to take photos of Nogales. I didn’t mention the wall. He asked if I’d had lunch. “No.” I answered. “Was I looking for a job?” I laughed and said “I’m 77 years old. Retired and just traveling around the U.S.” I’m still puzzled about what kind of job he thought I might be looking for in Mexico but my answer seemed to convince him and he let me through.

But what happened next made me wonder if I had somehow triggered a flag of some sort. Or maybe it was turning away from the highway back to Tucson. Every street in the area seems to lead right back to Highway 19, but I went another way along the road beside the fence and noticed that a newish gray pickup pulled out right behind me.

Determined to get a wall photo, I turned off the fence road after a block and drove into a old neighborhood near the wall, pulled to the side of the street, took a photo, then proceeded uphill into the neighborhood. Right behind me was the pickup and after a couple of blocks I got the sense that it was following me so at the next intersection I turned around. The driver in the gray pickup–he was anglo–lowered the window and made a gesture as if tipping his hat to me. I’m not sure what that meant but I went straight to Highway 19 and back to Tucson. My guess is that the pickup driver was a U.S. government employee who would have probably hassled me had I not turned around and left the area.

Discover what’s happening in Tucson where I am living for now.