Walking around

This week I took a road trip to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico and ended up walking around the streets on a warm, sunny morning. I had brought along my Sony a6300 and a 24mm prime lens, and I set the camera on aperture priority, ISO 400 f7.1, so I wouldn’t have to fiddle with the infuriating Sony buttons and menus. (More on this some other time)

The morning was pretty quiet. Everyone who worked in the US had already crossed the border, and the American senior citizens who come for inexpensive prescription drugs were yet to arrive. I was used to a Nogales of liquor stores and curio shops where you could buy garish serapes, cheap earthenware pots, black velvet paintings, horse shit cigarettes, hand-carved onyx chess sets, and fireworks. Stores were dark, a little dusty, and packed with all kinds of stuff, like a poorly-organized Goodwill. No more. Once across the border it’s nothing but Farmacias, and the shopkeepers entice you into their stores with the promise of cheap prescription drugs. Here’s a costume shop with shiny floors, headless superheroes, and easy-to-locate wares.

This out-of-business restaurant is more typical of what I had seen years ago, but both Cocina Economica and its neighbor, Bar Romanos, were looking for new tenants. I remember stopping into places like Romanos years ago where, on a bullfight Sunday, you’d find a mariachi band playing a lively canción, the lead singer plucking away at his guitarrón.

This is the new border wall from the Sonoran side. I don’t remember what used to be here, but I doubt this is an improvement. I came here expecting it to be the same as it ever was, but I’m not sure why.