Biking Around Again

Tijuana’s airport is right on the US border. Here’s Ferda just across the street from the Tijuana airport with the US-Mexico border fence behind her.

For years I’ve wondered why they don’t make it into a multinational (or whatever the right term is) airport like Basel or Geneva. Ferda and I found a US$98 ticket from Tijuana (TIJ) to Tuxtla Gutiérrez via Mexico City to visit Zane in Chiapas so I was excited to learn about CBX. Does that make TIJ into a two country airport? Well, yes. Does that make it useful? No!

Why not? The biggest problem with CBX is that they charge US$30/person to use this service. Then there’s the issue of getting there. We paid US$20.50 each to get (by bus) from Orange County to San Ysidro, then another 20 pesos each (US$1.12) on the Mexican side for a bus to the airport. For a bus from Orange County to CBX, however, they want US$38 each. So using CBX instead of simply walking across the border at San Ysidro would add over US$46 each to our trip — for what advantage? Avoiding one city bus in Tijuana and perhaps saving an hour. Really? Switzerland and France can figure this out, but the US and Mexico can’t? Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.

Anyway, since we weren’t taking a bus directly to CBX, it was easy to add a stop to our itinerary in San Diego (another advantage of not using CBX). First we visited Old Town San Diego which I suppose eases one into Mexico.