---
type: Country
title: Mexico
description: One day across the border in Tijuana — cheap pharmacies serving Americans, cartel violence aimed at other cartels, taxi drivers who hand out life advice, and $2 tacos at the tourist price.
tags: [mexico, tijuana, borders, cartels, pharmacies, tacos, north-america]
timestamp: 2026-08-05T19:00:00Z
---

# Mexico

Harry's coverage so far is a single day in [Tijuana](/places/tijuana.md), crossed
on foot from San Diego with [Cameron Mofid](/people/cameron-mofid.md). He says
twice that he needs to come back and do the country properly.

*Obs: the video carries a read-aloud DNA-testing sponsorship with no travel
content. The provider is not recorded here.*

## Crossing on foot

- **It takes five to ten minutes and a security form** on a Sunday. On a weekday
  afternoon it can take hours.
- **There is no US exit stamp**, which leaves him genuinely unsure whether he can
  get back in.
- **Tijuana's airport sits on the border**, and there is a **$35 fee** for the
  bridge that crosses into it — after which domestic flights across Mexico are
  cheap. Cameron's tip for anyone in southern California.

## Money and daily life

- **Pharmacies are a border industry.** Americans cross for medicine at roughly
  **half the US price**, and for dental work, because of what the same things cost
  at home.
- **Tacos at 40 pesos — about $2.30** — at a touristy beach restaurant he expects
  to be among the pricier places in the country. Soft tacos are standard, and he
  prefers them.
- **Mango with chilli** is the street snack he expects to dislike and doesn't.
- **Taxi drivers are the surprise of the trip.** Talkative, cheerful, and — in one
  case — an unofficial advice service; passengers tell him their problems and he
  tells them what he thinks. Harry contrasts it directly with the silence of an
  American rideshare.
- ***Wey*** is the everyday word for *mate* or *dude*.

## Safety and the cartels

- **The violence is between organisations, not aimed at visitors.** What Harry is
  told, by his companion and by a taxi driver independently: cartels compete over
  Tijuana because it is valuable territory for moving drugs into the US, and
  tourists aren't worth their attention.
- **Petty crime risk is very low.** Cameron's framing, from someone who has been to
  174 countries: nobody is going to hold a knife to you for a phone — the danger
  here is a different category from Afghanistan's, and you have to go looking for
  it.
- **You can find it if you look**: the wrong neighbourhood, alone, filming, in good
  clothes.

## The border itself

- **Two walls with empty ground between them**, and San Diego visible beyond.
- **Soldiers watch it**, armed and unwilling to talk on camera.
- **There was a place where separated families met.** People split across the
  border — some of whom will never be able to enter the US — could come to the
  fence to talk and touch hands. Harry is told this may have stopped.
- **Murals run along the wall**, weathered by the sea.
- **What locals told him about who wants to leave**: many people come to Tijuana
  hoping to reach America, but Tijuana is comparatively prosperous by Mexican
  standards and people from the city are largely happy where they are.

## Source

- [A Journey Across the US/Mexico Border into Tijuana 🇺🇸 🇲🇽](/videos/F2cspOu3_iQ.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2cspOu3_iQ