Being in Mesa, Arizona for the winter tends to make me lazy. I am playing more golf than sightseeing. However, we did make a trip to Algodones, Mexico with friends. They had to go for a dentist appointment, and they wanted company on the long drive. Having been there several times last year I think I exhausted most of the scenic picture taking opportunities . If I were to take up human interest photography, however, I would have a new source for hundreds of pictures.
The locals are interesting, colorful, but poor. I expect it is like most border towns. There are a few with money as a result of running businesses that trade with Americans, but most are poor. Algodones is known for good/inexpensive dental work, low cost eye glasses made in one to two hours, cheap prescription drugs, and liquor stores. Americans come in droves, park in a big paved lot on the American side and then walk across the border. The town starts immediately past the border gates.
However, the merchants are beginning to be pinched by new American restrictions. New rules on bringing prescriptions back across the border and hikes in drug prices reduce the saving and increase the difficultly of buying drugs. Liquor is now restricted to one liter every 30 days. But, the biggest headache for me is that it is now a time consuming process to get back across the border with your purchases. The customs officers record your name, liquor purchase, and verify your prescriptions against your drug purchases as you return to the US. This is time consuming and the number of officers has not been increased. What used to take 10 minutes took us close to 90 minutes this time. Fortunately when the line gets really long they seem to forego the recording and pass people through with the "anything to declare" question, stopping only those that make them curious.
I did come across a courtyard that I did not remember, and it made a nice picture. Most of the town looks like the street picture rather than the courtyard.
On the way back (just West of Yuma)we made a detour in order to drive by an old Butterfield Overland Stage Company stage stop that we had spotted from the interstate. Took a bit of winding around, but it was interesting. It surprised me that this site was not preserved in any way, apparently it has not been adopted by a historical group.
In 1857 John Butterfield of Utica, N.Y. won a government contract to carry mail from St Louis to San Francisco twice a week. His route was Southern in order to avoid heavy snows so that he could run year around. They also hauled people and small cargoes as a side to the mail. Mark Twain traveled the line in 1861 and wrote of his experiences. If you would like to know more about the stage line try going tohttp://www.discoverseaz.com/History/Butterfield.html
or Google "Butterfield Overland Stage Company" and get a buzzillion (actually 50,900 or so) references.
No comments:
Post a Comment