Since I was spending the weekend in El Paso, I decided to be a little daring and hop over into Juarez. Now in 2010, Juarez was the most dangerous city in the world with number 2 being Baghdad. The cartels were in an all-out war with each other and it was a complete bloodbath. I started asking some of my coworkers what they thought and their opinions actually changed from last year. Most of them are starting to cross on a regular basis again and I got the general consensus that if I stayed on the main road, kind of like Nuevo Progreso, I'd be safe.
I did my research and decided I wanted to go to Club Kentucky, which is a famous bar opened after prohibition in the United States. Many celebrities frequented that bar since it was only 2.5 blocks in. Since I was downtown and about a mile and a half away from the bar, I decided I'd get some exercise and walk to it.
I started the day with some breakfast.
Realizing that it opened at noon and it was mountain time, I had some time to kill. I hung out in my room and worked a bit on this blog. I then proceeded to dress as poor looking as I could to make it look like I didn't have anything worth stealing or make me a target. I settled for my Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt with a bunch of holes in it.
They had breakfast going until noon, so I decided to grab another plate for lunch before I walked out.
I started walking and got some nice views of downtown.
I then walked past the San Jacinto Plaza, and saw it during the day.
I started walking some more. The closer I got to the border, the more it looked like actual Mexico. Honestly, if you're ever too scared to venture into Mexico, just hang out on the US side of the border slightly north of the border and you'll get a lot of the experience there.
I finally made it to the PDN bridge, where I had worked the day before.
I started walking across the bridge and realized the river was insanely low. There was also a lot of fencing.
I finally made it into Mexico! The federal police presence is actually reassuring.
They had really cleaned up this street from what I could see. It didn't even really feel like being in Mexico or close to what it looked like on Google Street view from a few years prior. Overall it felt very clean and safe.
I finally made it to my destination, Club Kentucky!
