How Often Do You Cross the Mexican Border?

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

21 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

I always feel like I stepped into a Bond movie.

Acuna is kind of like the Mayberry of border towns. I'm sure you could get into trouble there, but you'd probably have to start it.

Piedras = a major upgrade of Eagle Pass. 

[Anastasis 23458]

We use to go down to Laredo almost every year for Thanksgiving when I was a kid.  Fond memories of sitting in the mercado with my grandfather and dad while they pounded margaritas and the women did their thing. 

[Brisketexan 105057]

Piedras = a major upgrade of Eagle Pass. 

My family is concentrated in both cities.

You’re not wrong.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

My family is concentrated in both cities.

You’re not wrong.

It is the home of the International Day of the Nacho: October 21. 

[JBJ 3654]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

My family is concentrated in both cities.

You’re not wrong.

Immigrating from Piedras Negras to Eagle Pass pays off in the long haul.

[SaucyJack 3488]

21 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

By Mayberry I mean "place on the border least likely to end up dismembered in a suitcase."

Sadly, by the time I discovered Acuna it was a shadow of itself. Air Force dudes were nowhere to be seen. Any given bar on the strip, it was me and 3 or 4 old local dudes.

Did meet one taxi driver who took me out to see the jail that Robert Rodriguez used for the first scenes in El Mariachi. We didn't go inside.

 

2 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

Acuna is booming outside the old tourist area. US tourists have vanished, but folks say that more and more US factories are opening.

 

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Acuna is booming outside the old tourist area. US tourists have vanished, but folks say that more and more US factories are opening.

As a teenager in the 70s, Acuna's population floated around 50k. Bars, Bullfights and other "Summer of 42" distractions.

Now, Acuna Population is around 200k (boom started around 90), maquiladoras galore, but with the drug violence (not as pronounced as in other places),

the charm left.

Another cousin married one of the Chapa girls. /csb

Edited June 20, 2018 by SaucyJack

[Brisketexan 105057]

It is the home of the International Day of the Nacho: October 21. 

Yes, invented by Ignacio “nacho” Hernandez at El Moderno.

[Brisketexan 105057]

Immigrating from Piedras Negras to Eagle Pass pays off in the long haul.

I dunno...my Piedras family is freaking rich.

[SaucyJack 3488]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I dunno...my Piedras family is freaking rich.

TMI?

[Lagunamadre 1975]

Grew up in Corpus. I learned how to drink in Nuevo Laredo, weekends at the La Posado were my favorite. I hope that place normalized soon (doubtful). After Laredo got bad we'd go to Progresso and Piedres, when we were in that part of Texas. Progresso is underrated. Best nachos and margaritas in the world at Arturos. 

I was in San Diego (CA, not TX) a couple months ago and spent the day in Tijuana. Reminded me of a much bigger Laredo with SoCal weather. A bit too touristy for my taste, but still was good to get the border town feel again. 

If Laredo gets safe again, first round of Ramos Gin Fizzes are on me. Y'all can reciprocate with Coronitas as Papagueyos. 

[Lagunamadre 1975]

24 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

My family is concentrated in both cities.

You’re not wrong.

One of the few instances, maybe the only one, where the Mexican side is legitimately nicer than the Mexican side. 

What's the status of Modernos? 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Why is this in politics? Seems like folks are well behaved enough to move this to food & travel.

I find it really weird that I have only crossed the border once. I was 19 with a few college friends. Spur of the moment trip from Austin to piedras negras. My father, an immigrant from Latin America, lived in Mexico City for a little bit and did quite a bit of business there (rare coins with my grandfather). My gringo uncle from San Antonio spent a lot of time on the border. He said him and his friends would ride horses across the river to small towns to drink and party.

All my time in Latin America was living in Brazil and visiting family in Honduras. Only way I would go to Honduras with my kids would be straight to Roatan or another Bay Island. All my cousins there are well employed, but I never understood why they put up with living in that shithole. Well, what it has become. Seems much worse than Mexico or any border town.

[RDCanecutter 26379]

1 hour ago, Patricio Swayze said:

Why is this in politics? Seems like folks are well behaved enough to move this to food & travel.

I wanted people to have the option to attack each other in gladiatorial combat if they felt like it. Even though the term "Latin America" is a French scam from when they were trying to undercut les anglosaxonnes, Mexico and especially the border has that old Roman feel to me.

[EuroHorn 3252]

I’ve been on the border many times. Great prices on margaritas 

[High Plains Drifter 11026]

When I was in high school, we lived in El Paso for a year. My high school was not far from one of the crossings to Juarez. During lunch we'd drive across, and have a plate of tacos and slam a couple of beers. On the weekends, dad and I would drive across and gamble at the dog racing track.

During college, I'd go to Monterrey when I was at SPI during spring break. We would also road trip down to Piedras Negras or Acuna on occasion.

After college, I lived about five miles from Progresso for four years , so we'd go there or to Reynosa for dinner or shopping or drinking once or twice a week. There was this movie theater in Reynosa that was like the Alamo draft house but super deluxe. The handful of times I flew internationally back then, I'd fly out of Reynosa because it was so much cheaper.

Before they closed it, I crossed at Boquilas a couple of times. Last time I was there, it hadn't reopened yet, but the Singing Mexican (RIP) did serenade my daughter.

Probably been ten years or so since I've been back, as I don't live anywhere near the border now.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

I've posted about this on another board on here, but I was there in Matamoros the night the Santeria Cannibal Voodoo Gang kidnapped Mark Kilroy and turned his spine into a necklace and his flesh into stew. I was making out with the woman who is now my wife, and they were trying to toss my best friend into a truck about 50 yards away. He interrupted our make-out sessions right there by the bridge to tell us about how that had happened that night. It was only later we found out Kilroy had been taken, and my buddy fit the specs of what they were looking for: blond, blue-eyed gringo. 

So did I for that matter but I was otherwise occupied, and El Brujo didn't ask for a girl. I would have sold my life dearly...

Edited June 23, 2018 by MaybeACoordinator

[ScottishHorn 172]

I haven't been in a while but I've spent a lot of time down there.  It was fun back in the 90's.  

[Doc Sam Beckett 5792]

Bout to head down next weekend. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers! 

[Dolemite 143]

On 6/19/2018 at 8:15 PM, Lagunamadre said:

Grew up in Corpus. I learned how to drink in Nuevo Laredo, weekends at the La Posado were my favorite. I hope that place normalized soon (doubtful). After Laredo got bad we'd go to Progresso and Piedres, when we were in that part of Texas. Progresso is underrated. Best nachos and margaritas in the world at Arturos. 

I was in San Diego (CA, not TX) a couple months ago and spent the day in Tijuana. Reminded me of a much bigger Laredo with SoCal weather. A bit too touristy for my taste, but still was good to get the border town feel again. 

If Laredo gets safe again, first round of Ramos Gin Fizzes are on me. Y'all can reciprocate with Coronitas as Papagueyos. 

If you go again go a few miles south to Rosarito. Nicer. 

[relapse98 634]

On 6/19/2018 at 9:13 PM, EuroHorn said:

I’ve been on the border many times. Great prices on margaritas 

Oh heavens, get a paloma instead. You're welcome. 

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

CLOSE THE BORDER THEY COMIN'

 

 

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Feeding the gods: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

By Lizzie WadeJun. 21, 2018 , 2:00 PM

The priest quickly sliced into the captive's torso and removed his still-beating heart. That sacrifice, one among thousands performed in the sacred city of Tenochtitlan, would feed the gods and ensure the continued existence of the world.

Death, however, was just the start of the victim's role in the sacrificial ritual, key to the spiritual world of the Mexica people in the 14th to the 16th centuries.

Priests carried the body to another ritual space, where they laid it face-up. Armed with years of practice, detailed anatomical knowledge, and obsidian blades sharper than today's surgical steel, they made an incision in the thin space between two vertebrae in the neck, expertly decapitating the body. Using their sharp blades, the priests deftly cut away the skin and muscles of the face, reducing it to a skull. Then, they carved large holes in both sides of the skull and slipped it onto a thick wooden post that held other skulls prepared in precisely the same way. The skulls were bound for Tenochtitlan's tzompantli, an enormous rack of skulls built in front of the Templo Mayor—a pyramid with two temples on top. One was dedicated to the war god, Huitzilopochtli, and the other to the rain god, Tlaloc.

 

 

[ChingoHorns 115]

I cross 2-4 times a month into Matamoros and Reynosa. We visit the wifes familia, eat some mariacos and hit up the Soriana for snacks and home cleaning supplies. 

Matamoros has been chill for the past few months, no shot-collars have been killed or arrested so the city is at peace.

Now Reynosa is another story. I went to pick up a part at the VW dealership and within the few minutes I was there a shootout happened between Los Metros or Ciclones and la marina. Shit was wild!