I was in Tijuana for all of a few minutes, in 1967. I was wearing Navy reg shoes, and probably would have smelled obviously of Navy anyhow. I had barely walked over the line when a couple of Mexicans offered me a girl "fresh in from the country, guaranteed not over twelve years old". I turned around and walked back over the bridge.

A friend has gone down into the Baja several time recently to work at an orphanage there for some of the winter. He says that the drug cartel people have done one thing for Tijuana: They put out the word that guys caught coming down after children would be castrated. They kept their word. It has been a rather effective deterrent.

On the other hand, the same friend had a very scary time coming back to the border last spring. He was told that he had "disrespected" a traffic direction sign at the border (the sign wasn't visible until he reached the point at which he was confronted). He was detained for some time and ordered to sign a lengthy statement that he couldn't read. Along with his signature he put a note saying he was signing under duress and couldn't read the statement; they let that go. His wallet was taken, finally returned minus $200.00. When he got to the U.S. side, the border personnel said that they had seen what went down, so at least they would have been aware of it.