I’ve been offering Juarez Walking Tours to anyone willing to pay my meager fee for more than 10 years. Over that period, I’ve barely taken anyone from El Paso. Maybe 5 groups. Certainly less than 10.
I’ve struggled to understand the lack of support I’ve gotten from the local market.
The Juarez Walking Tour is the E-ticket El Paso experience.
(Obscure cultural reference: In the old days, a Disneyland visit involved ticket books. Each Disneyland ride required a different ticket. The A-tickets were good for rides like the Teacups, or a Merry-go-round. Mister Toad’s Wild Ride was probably a D-ticket. The E-tickets were for the most popular rides like the Matterhorn.)
After a tour, visitors from out of town often ask me “What other El Paso attraction is a must-see experience?” and I’ve got nothing. What? A Chihuahuas game? Lots of other cities have baseball teams, and one baseball game is pretty much like any other, and the Chihuahuas only play 70-something home games a year. I guess, if a tourist is in town, and the Chihuahuas are playing, a baseball game is a good way to kill an evening in El Paso, but that’s if there’s nothing else to do, and, lots of the times, there’s nothing else to do.
So why haven’t more El Pasoans jumped on the Juarez Walking Tour experience?
I’ve recently come up with a theory.
For most lifelong El Pasoans, Downtown Juarez means bars. We spent our teenage years (and maybe our adolescence) going over to Juarez to get drunk. We grew up going to the Sub, or Fred’s, or The Cave, and that’s what Downtown Juarez means to us. My friend Joel, who is otherwise reasonably intelligent, calls the Juarez Walking Tours “bar tours”, but there is a lot more than bars to Downtown Juarez, and sometimes on our tours, we don’t go to a bar at all, because there’s more than bars to Juarez.
There’s history. During the Mexican Revolution, there were 3 battles for control of Juarez. (Pancho Villa went 2-1.) During the United States’ experiment with Prohibition, Juarez was an uninhibited party. And the Mission of Our Lady of Guadalupe was consecrated in 1659. For this continent, that’s old.
There’s culture. Muralists have carved out a thriving art scene in Downtown Juarez. Musicians ply the neighborhoods, and on the weekends, there’s dancing in the streets. There are markets (not of the tourist trap variety) that offer fruits and vegetables, and every manufactured doodad you can think of. And there are Mexicans. There are no better people in the world than Mexicans. They’re generous, and friendly, and hardworking, and blessed with a wonderful sense of humor.
Juarez is a big deal in Mexico. El Paso isn’t even a big deal in Texas.
I’ve had people who have come from out of town, from Dallas, or Denver, and elsewhere, just to go on a Juarez Walking Tour. El Pasoans, however, are a little harder to convince.
Maybe you’re afraid. Well, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Sure, there are bad neighborhoods in Juarez. Juarez is a big city. But Downtown Juarez is perfectly safe these days. I tell people “If all you knew about the United States was what you read in the paper, you wouldn’t want to go there, either.”
I encourage all El Pasoans to take advantage of all that Juarez has to offer, and if you need a nudge, or someone to hold your hand, let me suggest you avail yourself of a Juarez Walking Tour.
Speaking only for myself, but as a long time El Paso resident, I could offer a bit more. My first trip across the border was probably sometime in late 1967. I visited downtown once or twice in early ’68 (the Mariscal, Fred’s, dollar beers, and dives). I got married to a local girl in ’68, and she and her family showed me a lot more of Juarez (the old mercado, on diez y seis, el K-4, and other drive ins, and Waterfill). We lived in the lower valley up until the early 90’s, so going across the border was a very frequent occurence. I think the main attractions were convenience and cost. But, as time went on, especially after 9/11, the convenience disappeared as the lines got longer and longer, and the CBP got more and more difficult to deal with, and costs no longer seemed to be worth the hassle.
Now, of course, I can’t really walk very far without pain. I use a cane for short distances, and the VA has provided me with a mobility scooter (which is a bit of a hassle all by itself). So, a walking tour is not practical. However, I still go across frequently for dental work, so I am still able to find my way across the free bridge, through the Pronaf area, and over to my dentists’ office on Plutarcho Elias Calles. Then, I come home, along the border, to either Ysleta/Zaragoza, or all the way out to Guadalupe/Tornillo if the line is long at Zaragoza. The lines can be very long, plus I now have to pay a toll. So, bottom line, for me, is that while I am very aware of some of the history and the real attactions of Cd. Juarez, unless I have business over there, I really have no reasons to cross these days.
I hope things pick up for you, but until/unless border crossing improves, I suspect you’re in a long, losing battle. Good luck, Rich.
Thank you, John, but the pedestrian lines at the Paso del Norte Bridge are pretty manageable these days. I’m rarely stuck for more than ten minutes. I suspect it’s all the money that the federal government is throwing at border security. They have to spend it somewhere, so why not customer service?
I can’t speak to the car lines, as I rarely drive over the border.
If you have some flexibility in your schedule, I reckon you pick a time of day when crossing is practically pain-free.