Ken Cooke - 3-19-2010 at 07:32 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/03/19/Tijuana.mexico.tourism/...
For more on this story, watch "American Morning" from 7 to 9 a.m. ET.
Tijuana, Mexico (CNN) -- On Tijuana's Avenue de la Revolucion, street vendor and sidewalk philosopher Juan Ramon Rocha leaned on his coin and jewelry
cart and waited.
But the tourists from across the border never rushed into the streets of T.J., as it's often called.
Rocha made one sale, to a local resident, in an hour.
"The business, you can see for yourself, it went down 95 percent," he said. "Please tell them, the Americans, it's safe to come here. We are all
Americanos, North Americanos. Do you see any problems here?"
A few yards away, there was a donkey painted like a zebra, hitched to a cart full of sombreros, a Tijuana photo opportunity. But no smiling tourists
stepped into the picture frame.