Around El Paso

Here are a few tips for El Paso before I forget. The Scenic Drive is really nice. It curves around the south of the El Paso mountains and these pictures are all taken from there. Do NOT change money into pesos at the bank. Go to Melek's service on the corner of Mesa & Paisano near downtown. We got 10.65 pesos per $1 there which was a peso better per dollar than the bank.
In between Mom and Felipe's heads you can sort of see the Mexican flag. That is Juarez in the background after the little park on the right if Felipe.

There are multiple ways to cross into Juarez from El Paso... you can take a walking bridge or a round trip trolley or drive on 4 different roads. The tourist propaganda in our hotel makes Juarez sound a lot
better than all the stories I've heard.

You can see the cement Rio Grande right in the middle of this picture. Click on any pictures if you want to see them larger.

I did fix the lens on my camera to get rid of these spots
after I downloaded the pictures and saw them.



Here is the same view but at night when the smog had cleared. It looks very pretty at night. You can kind of see the snake of lights through the city which marks the border. We did drive along the border highway and saw the fences... All three of them with barbed wire on top and paths in between them for the border patrol vehicles to go. Did I mention the millions of watts of floodlights pointing towards Mexico? Very, very interesting. There is a Border Patrol Museum here but we decided not to go. I can't imagine what would be inside! I just imagine some kind of grotesque trophies of people caught or something. Ugh.


Well... on another note tomorrow we cross. We are both trying not to think of it. We've had a really good time with my parents and it's helped us relax which has been a blessing. They did talk us into staying in Juarez over the weekend instead of making the 5 hour drive to Chihuahua City and back before his interview. Even if we have to stay in the hotel all weekend it would be better than risking something happening to us so he couldn't get to his interview that we've waited 2 years for. We will miss mom and dad and it will be very emotional to cross over the bridge tomorrow. However, we are confident that on the afternoon of April 17th (the day of his 2nd interview) we will be back again on this side of the river.

My next entry will be from Juarez, Mexico and I suppose in honor of the occassion it will be in Spanish (as long as Felipe tells me what to type).