Oso
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 2637
Registered: 8-29-2003
Location: on da border
Member Is Offline
Mood: wait and see
|
|
Endangered Species: TJ Zebras
TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Posing in a Mexican sombrero for a souvenir photograph, a tourist pauses to rub the snout of a zebra. Throwing back its
ears it starts to shift, snort and heave until a rasping bray erupts.
Actually painted donkeys, Tijuana's fake zebras have been part of life along a main strip of tequila bars and trinket stands in this fast-changing
city south of San Diego, California, for more than seven decades.
Daubed with black hair-dye stripes, the white animals are hitched to oxcarts, each one fitted with painted backdrops depicting scenes that include
Mayan temples, Aztec warriors and snowcapped volcanoes.
Visitors from the United States and as far afield as Japan and Italy have posed beside them for $5 (3 pound) snapshots, taken with ancient box
cameras, since Tijuana grew from a two-block border village to a city with booming tourist bars and stores.
But now the familiar animals have become a dying breed as jittery tourists avoid Tijuana out of fear of being caught up in Mexico's spiralling cycle
of drug violence.
Last year more than 1,500 people were killed by warring drug gangs nationwide. And in Tijuana, a key smuggling route to California, 438 bodies turned
up last year, most of them victims of vicious cartel infighting gunned down in the streets.
That has scared away U.S. tourists, from day-trippers to students who come to take advantage of the lower drinking age.
"Trade has dropped right off because of the violence, and the situation is critical," said Vicente Sanchez, a 25-year veteran of the trade as he
scanned the central Avenida Revolucion strip for visitors to snap with his zebra, Barney.
LAST LINK TO THE PAST
The zebras are the last link to Tijuana's golden age as a racy
prohibition hot spot that wooed famous U.S. revellers including Charlie Chaplin and gangster Al Capone south of the border in search of a drink and a
chance to bet.
"It all started in the 1930s when someone decided to paint the donkeys up with stripes so that they'd look better in black-and-white photographs,"
recalled Jorge Bonillas, a sprightly 75-year-old who has worked with the animals since 1941.
The animals first worked outside the city's Agua Caliente Casino in the 1930s. But when the gambling den was shut by presidential decree late in the
decade they moved to the Avenida Revolucion, where they have plied their trade ever since.
Business boomed in the 1940s as Tijuana continued its rise as a sin city escape for thousands of U.S. servicemen stationed in wartime San Diego, who
trekked south to carouse in the city's bars and brothels before heading off to war.
Bonillas remembers celebrities of the day pulling on jaunty sombreros and posing with his donkeys, including world light-heavyweight boxing
champion Archie Moore, and Mexico's much-loved comic actor Mario Moreno, better known as Cantinflas.
During the heyday years that lasted until the turn of the millennium, the traders formed their own union, and worked the crowded street in two shifts.
"It was just too much," said Bonillas, who is regarded as the dean of the donkey wranglers. "We had more work than we could handle."
DRUG WAR HITS TOURISM
Then came the September 11 attacks, followed two years later by the invasion of Iraq, which the zebra wranglers say choked off tourism and unsettled
trade as many Americans shunned foreign travel.
The situation worsened last year when violence between drug gangs seeking control of lucrative cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine
smuggling routes erupted in street battles across Mexico.
The gunfights, killings and kidnappings grew so common in Mexico border cities that the U.S. State Department issued repeated travel warnings to
citizens, advising them to stay away.
Hundreds of craft shops, bars and restaurants in a strip of gritty
border towns stretching from Tijuana in the west to Matamoros on the Gulf Coast closed as a result.
No figures are available for the number of tourists staying away but store owners in Tijuana agree traffic has dropped significantly in recent years.
The donkey wranglers, whose trade had anyway begun to appear increasingly anachronistic to some visitors in an age of growing concern over animal
welfare, have been particularly hard hit.
Their number has halved from more than 20 in the boom years. Several now stay away on weekdays when tourist numbers drop to a trickle, and warn that
the future is bleak for them and their striped partners.
"It's very sad, but I think they are on the way out," said Victor Manuel Reyes, shooting a sad glance at his zebra Ruben.
"These little animals are now an endangered species."
All my childhood I wanted to be older. Now I\'m older and this chitn sucks.
|
|
|
Juan del Rio
Senior Nomad
Posts: 560
Registered: 6-8-2004
Member Is Offline
|
|
Carlos Fiesta and Juan del Rio
What problems???? Hey this is Baja!!! Carlos and I just had to get one for old times sakes a couple of weeks ago...
|
|
|
Juan del Rio
Senior Nomad
Posts: 560
Registered: 6-8-2004
Member Is Offline
|
|
Blast from the past...
A classic TJ image from the late 40's!
|
|
|
Juan del Rio
Senior Nomad
Posts: 560
Registered: 6-8-2004
Member Is Offline
|
|
They still use an original Kodak...
The process they used has not changed from the early part of the last century...what a living piece of history that still happens everyday!
|
|
|
Juan del Rio
Senior Nomad
Posts: 560
Registered: 6-8-2004
Member Is Offline
|
|
End of the day....
At the end of the day the donkeys are taken a couple of blocks away where they spend the evening. Carlos and I found out that there are two "barns"
that are very close to Avenida Revolucion. This old girl was led home after a hard day working the street and was not a happy camper. You could hear
her, "ye haaaing" all the way home!
[Edited on 4-11-2006 by Juan del Rio]
|
|
|
MrBillM
Platinum Nomad
Posts: 21656
Registered: 8-20-2003
Location: Out and About
Member Is Offline
Mood: It's a Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Day
|
|
Donkey Pics
Me (5 years old) and Sis (3) in Tijuana 1950
|
|
|
Paula
Super Nomad
Posts: 2219
Registered: 1-5-2006
Location: Loreto
Member Is Offline
|
|
The story and pictures make me want to rush up to TJ with Don and have our picture taken!
I always hate to see a piece of cultural history lost. This old souvenir says so much more about tijuana than the t-shirts and shot glasses we see
today.
But then I like to patronize the peddlers while waiting to cross the border- selectively, of course. Our granddaughter has an little painted chair-
just like one I had as a child, and a beautiful melamine accordian that actually sounds great. I think I'll pass on the sponge bobs and tweety birds,
but maybe a small guitar will be next, or even a glitter Guadalupe...
[Edited on 4-11-2006 by Paula]
|
|
|
Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
|
|
EXCELLENT RESEARCH AND FIND, OSO....a nostalgic look into yesteryear. It makes me very grateful that I was introduced to Baja long ago...and
experienced the gift of earlier times. Like these lyrics..."You can't take that away from me..."
More and more of the old customs, attitudes, and physical landmarks, like these uniquely-Baja animals, are disappearing every year. Hell, pretty
soon I suppose even the worm will disappear from the tequila..dang.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
|
|
|
burro bob
Nomad
Posts: 264
Registered: 3-15-2004
Location: Poblado del Ejido Plan National Agrario
Member Is Offline
|
|
I spotted this post on another board several days ago. Same Burro. Also is a scan of the finished product.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1014&me...
I think my burro is a lot more handsome as a burro instead of painted up like a zebra. Can't do this on the Malecon in San Felipe anymore. Considered
to be to much of a health hazard.
All the locals thought it was a great idea, but thought I'd get more business if I painted him like a zebra.
|
|
|
bajajudy
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6886
Registered: 10-4-2004
Location: San Jose del Cabo,BCS
Member Is Offline
|
|
CM Mayo in "Miraculous Air" mentions these painted burros in TJ. I had never seen them so these photos bring them to life for me
Thanks
[Edited on 4-13-2006 by bajajudy]
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
