Tag Archives: Red Light District

Tijuana Adventures Featured in TravelMag.com – Sorry, This Has Been Sort Of Abandoned – Tours are Still Active

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Ahoy! To all of those who stumbled into this page of Tijuana tours and adventures.

The blog has pretty much been abandoned for more than a couple of months. Things that I said I would fill in later, I never did. And ideas that I have never materialized.

Despite the page being virtually abandoned, a writer from TravelMag.com found me. And he had something wonderful to say about the tours.

Here’s the link to the article, or click the screencap.

Thanks to writer Paul Joseph for the mention.

So… why so abandoned?

Your tour guide has been busy with photography and writing. I’ve been writing every day the whole year in my own personal blog that I dubbed word vomit because I pretty much write about everything and anything. I also started a new gig as a freelance photographer for the magazine that usually runs my articles. So I’ve been pretty busy with other things that aren’t my tours.

Despite this, I have had several tours since the latest post.

And also, paid for the yearly subscription of this webpage. It was done automatically. I’m not sure if I actually wanted to do it.

Shit.

My latest post was from February…

I had around eight tours since then. Very sporadic and random tours. The latest was a repeat customer with new friends. A guy from Vancouver (with Moroccan family) brought two friends from Kosovo (but that grew up in Vancouver).

It was really fun times since the last time the repeat customer visited was a couple of years ago and a lot of things changed.

And a lot of things have changed with Tijuana Adventure as well.

Though I had the fantasy to make this into a food and beer blog, I’ve been too busy to keep that going.

However, I did start becoming very active on Instagram posting a lot of food porn.

If there was a way to post everything on my Instagram directly to WordPress, this page wouldn’t be totally abandoned.

So if you enjoy pictures of the Tijuana/San Diego reader, better follow me! It’s been a steady climb of followers. Easier than my actual profile @Matingas_

Repsonse has been good with the food pics. And it’s given me an outlet to write about food.

I also did business cards for myself and for this business.

They look like this.

Yes.

Exclusive tours.

I don’t do private groups and most people that know me have heard of me somehow, so they know what to expect.

So I’m more exclusive now. You get a tour with a photographer, writer, and musician with SHIT TONS of stories to tell. And that’s really what makes the tours special. They are small. I get to talk to everyone. I get to tell stories. We get to know each other.

So again.

My tours aren’t like other tours.

Go to the other tours if you want a basic (yet very fun) tour.

And finally.

I’m still working with Haydee if I ever need a replacement, or if I’m not available, or if people want to go to Valle de Guadalupe. She’s more knowledgeable about the wine valley than me. And she could also drive people there.

Basically, Haydee is still IN doing tours as needed.

I wish I had more tours for her. I wished I had more tours for myself. But life gets busy with other things and then time flies.

 

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Tours! TOURS! Tours! – Tijuana Adventure Activate! – Julie’s Bday Tour a Month Ago…

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This webpage and blog has been somewhat abandoned.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t been given tours.

Quite the contrary. I was busy with tours all of January. February is going slow, but March will already start with a tour.

Julie’s Bday Tj Adventure (with Nate and Company)

The tour above was super fun and probably one where I walked the most. We walked and walked and walked. I offered Ubers or taxis. But they wanted to walk.

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This is what a Tijuana Adventure usually looks like. A lot of food and beer and fun times.

And I’m sorry I rarely update the blog. I write in my life blog daily. Which is completely different.

Besides Julie’s bday tour, I also had a tour with a couple of crazy South Africans.

I have never partied in my life as much as I did with those South Africans. They showed me that I truly have no limits when it comes to my Tijuana tours. We spend so much money drinking, eating, … and more.

It is time to make my tours a bit more official. There needs to be an online payment method. There needs to be a public tour at least once a month. I have been doing my tours mostly as a side gig for fun. Not as a real business. But Tijuana Adventure has grown and it is time to take it a bit more seriously.

Even the US consul in Tijuana emailed me asking me about how to improve tourism.

More tours are coming.

More public events.

The page will get better.

The Tijuana Adventure Instagram will also be active…. if I remember the password.

A very good friend of mine named Brenda, aka Shappu, has also been doing tours. She is going her own way about it. Truly puts effort in giving people tours. Unlike me where I just wait for people to email me and tell me they want to book me. If I pushed my services. Get business cards. Do some posters… etc etc etc. Then it would truly be a tour service.

For now, I’m busy with writing stories, my new girlfriend, daily blog, and my cat. Tours are still available. Tours are still highly improvised. Tours are still hella fun.

I forgot where I was going with this. Point is. Tijuana Adventure will activate! More tours! Better tours! Online payments! Other tour guides! More beer! More food! MORE MORE MORE!

Want to visit Tijuana. Hit me up!

A New Tijuana Adventure Year – What’s 2017 for TJ Adventure

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Ahhhh!!

The beginning of 2016 I wanted to take Tijuana Adventure into a whole new direction. I wanted it to be an open source for Tijuanenses write about their favorite place and stuff like that and for them to give their own tours. You know. Get more people involved, make the website grow, and for them to make money as well.

It went nowhere.

Well… Except Haydee. She did a couple of tours last year. I did a bunch of others.

In fact, I had two great tours on December. A couple of Aussies, and a medium/psychic from Oregon.

There is nothing new for this year. I write daily on my blog. But that’s about my life, not really about Tijuana.

I thought about quitting Tijuana Adventure many times. But people keep contacting me for a tour, and I keep having a fun time with strangers. The extra cash is always welcome.

So Tijuana Adventure will remain improvised private tours by yours truly (and sometimes Haydee). I know if I actually posted anything on Instagram. Or if I posted more in here. Or if I truly tried to organize monthly beer tours. I know I would go somewhere. But that I have had the option to do that and have done nothing is pretty obvious that I am not meant to keep a tour guide business going. I do a lot of other things on a daily basis. The tours are just an extra thing I do for fun, that I also do for extra cash, but I mainly due for the love of this city.

Improvisation is the name of the game. My game.

This website still continues to have way more hits than my actual blog and it has next to 0 activity. Sorry about that. If you are reading this and want to know more about me, there’s my other blog. If you want to have a tour with me because it seems like we will get along, then please contact me.

Otherwise. There are tons of other tour guides for you.

Tijuana Adventure basically means tours with Matingas (or Haydee).

Happy new year Tijuana!

Let’s hope for many , but not too many tours!

New Tour Guide Joins the Team – A Lot of Tours – Sorry: Page was Neglected

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So….

I got really fucking busy for the past couple of months.

Last thing I posted was about the beer fest over a month ago. And I said was going to post here weekly. Not only did I got a lot of work from the real job that is my bread and butter…. I also did a lot of tours! I mentioned a price hike forever ago, and a few people wanted to hit me up before I became more expensive…

It’s not like I am more expensive, I just have less time to go on wild Tijuana Adventures. Thus I’m more expensive. AHH FUCK IT! Yes. I value my time more (I mean… tours used to be free!). I still hate charging people though. I always have too much fun.

I had like 7 tours in the past 2 months. All sorts of tours as well. The latest was a bachelor party with 11 people. This is the last time I do a party this big. It was difficult to coordinate, however… IT WAS A LOT OF FUN.

We covered a lot of ground.

Went to ORYX Capital for a nice fancy dinner. Got the chicken. It was grand. Everything there is on point. A full on review will come out later and I’ll link. One of the best features of ORYX is that there’s a speakeasy in there somewhere. The “secret” might be ruin soon, so I’ll just say that it’s in there somewhere for now.

ORYX Capital + Nortico = Good Shit

The pics are not from the tour, but from when I discovered ORYX and Nortico originally. The bachelor party loved the food and the speakeasy detail. There’s a pic of the 11 of them somewhere (and I might be able to use it here).

Then we went to Plaza Fiesta, the amazing beer plaza (read more about it here). A lot of craft beer, and a lot of classic bachelor party banter. The group was huge and had a lot of colorful individuals. A bunch living in California, some in Minneapolis, one from New York… the bachelor is a very popular guy.

From beer plaza we hit up downtown. Where more beers and mezcal shots ensued. And around midnight… the real bachelor party fun. That stays under wraps. But I must say… Tijuana is ten times better than Vegas for bachelor fun…

LETS MOVE TO HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!

Haydeé (aka HidHawk) Joins the Team

I haven’t posted anything not only because I’ve been busy as fuck… but because the other guys I invited to join ended up doing nothing (thanks guys!)

Talking to a good friend and Tijuana local, I mentioned the direction of Tijuana Adventure. She liked the idea and actually WROTE HER BIO and is excited to join in! To read more about her, CLICK HERE!
haydee
Haydeé traveled the world and when she came back, she discovered that Tijuana had changed a lot. Like me, she basically became an accidental tour guide. With the many projects and events she handles, she takes hoards of people from all over the world through the places she loves in Tijuana. She is in charge of Borderland Noise – music events both sides of the border.

Haydeé is on the right - Group of visitors at Public House tap room
Haydeé is on the right – Group of visitors at Public House tap room

Haydeé also has AirBnB available, for those who want to get a whole package of a place to stay that includes a tour guide… then… THAT’S A NEW AWESOME POSSIBLITY. I’m going to try to do this myself (currently looking for a house).

I’ve been kinda burnt on doing tours, that the bachelor party was the last tour I’ll be doing for a while. But now there’s Haydeé! A complete different approach to Tijuana Adventure. She has her own price, her own ideas, her own taste in music, drinks and food, her own limitations, her own tour, her own adventure.

Also, I believe she speaks fluent German (I might be wrong though… I’ll check soon and confirm).

I’m hoping the team will grow even more, and for visitors to have the option to choose what type of tour adventurer they would prefer. I know, I know, I’m using the word adventure too much that now it seems like a kids game… but seriously… you have no idea how many times I woke up in the morning and think to myself… holy shit… that was one crazy Tj adventure. No city that I know off can offer so much of everything in such a bizarre presentation that you would never know it existed unless you are a local.

Visiting Tijuana, don’t hesitate to contact either Haydeé (aka HidHawk) or myself (Matt aka Matingas).

— Matingas

There’s more than just XXX! New tours coming soon!

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I haven’t posted on the Tijuana Adventure blog in forever that it seems like I am not even giving tours anymore…

Quite the opposite. Since the last post, I have had more than 10 tours. Many involving Zona Norte (XXX tours), in fact, many of the emails I receive are inquiring about that though I deleted the tour from my webpage. Tijuana is much more than just a place to get naked girls. But I need to give people what they want, the XXX tours are back, but we don’t go directly just there, I’ll show you the whole city before is sinning time.

I had several one on one tours that were a blast and customers keep telling me I charge to little. I had a bachelor party that went pretty wild. I had a couple of brewery tours and a few international tours. Apparently a hostel has been recommending my service and it has brought me people around the world.

Here is one of the many tours I had… and the only one I took pictures:

hostel inhostel beach hostel pasaj

I got really busy between my part time job, freelance writing and giving tours that I simply had no time to update this blog. But I have quit my part time job to dedicate more time to giving tours!

Not only that, I will introduce a new tour every Saturday! Brew hopping and street food!

Introducing The Brew Hop and Baja Med Tour:

8 to 12 people – Saturdays from 2:00 pm to 8:00 pm $40 will get you:

  1. Walking tour of the city visiting landmarks, art galleries, street art, cafes, shops, etc.
  2. 4 breweries wtih a free flight of beers or a full pour in each stop.
  3. 2 street food stops
  4. Ride back to the border

Poster of this and more updates on the page will come soon.

Also, I had a brief talk with Uber, so I might be getting my own promo code and will be using UberXl to move around the city!

In the meantime, my friend from college, Drew, is visiting. And we are having Tijuana Adventures of our own.

drew

Book your tour now here:
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Follow Tijuana Adventure on Instagram here:

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Tijuana Adventure for 2015…. Sorry, I’ve been busy

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My last post was back in September….

I was going to post that I was taking a break in October, but that never happened. My college roommate from Minnesota visit me at the end of the month and we hung out for a week straight in Tijuana. We had plenty of adventures, but we also learned that we can’t drink as much as we did in college.

This happened on Halloween night in Tijuana:

I’ve been very busy, no time to party all night and write about it the next day. I got a regular job in retail at a soccer store in San Diego to have a more steady income and to get a van for the tours.

I keep getting emails for Tijuana Adventures… I’ve been having all sorts of adventures but no time to post about it and I keep forgetting to take pictures.

I had an important tour some months back with a group of 10 (5 married couples). Before meeting them, I took a nap in a co-workers car in the parking lot outside work.

I’ve had plenty of 1 on 1 tours all over the place. All very much fun, I even received this email thanking me for the tour:

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And in 2015 I have already had two adventures!!!

I had one booked since last year for a Veggie and Brewery tour that is coming up next Saturday (will post about it later). But out of nowhere I got two last minute tours that ended up being really awesome.

The first one of the year had to be an XXX tour with a programmer from Los Angeles. We ate at Cevicheria Naiz, drank at Mamut, talked about videogames and then headed to the XXX world for unrated fun…. Haven’t done those tours in a long time… they uhh.. renovated some areas of the clubs, the usual dirty business remained the same. He emailed me the next day:
Mark review Through the tour he kept thanking me, it was a wonderful time.

The second one was with friends of friends. A guy from Alabama (Ed) and one from Minnesota (Chris) were roommates in France, Chris visited Ed to Los Angeles where he currently lives and they came down to Tijuana. We went on a classic Tj Adventure party blender with live music shows by Innerds and Octagrape at Mous Tache, street tacos and plenty of drinks.

Here we are eating at Cevicheria Naiz before partying until 4 am:
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And we had breakfast tacos at the king, Tacos el Rey, before saying our hungover goodbyes:
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2015 seems promising for a lot of tours! If I am lucky, I might be able to quit my job and party with tourists for a living…. make my dream come true… come party… come have a Tijuana Adventure!

Three completely different adventures in one week. Beer fest tour up next!

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Tijuana Adventure hasn’t really been my priority that of late. I was too busy with all the other pretend jobs I have to really work on givings tours. But last week was a busy one. First, my friend (Waves) and his wife (Betty) from LA, who canceled on me twice before, finally made it down to TJ. They needed to come down to TJ this time looking to save money on medicinal goods. Instead of paying $350 for Betty’s inhaler, they paid $35…

They saved hundreds of dollars, which meant they have plenty of money to spend. We ate in Playas at Hunab-Ku, where they serve vegetarian tacos. Spent some time in downtown and drank at Mamut Brewery. Unfortunately, they had to leave early back to LA and by 5:00 pm on Wednesday they headed back.

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On Friday, I was supposed to host two girls via Couchsurfing. But they also had to leave early and did not spend the night. They already had a host and a guide, but I decided to join them for some time at the beach. We hung out for a couple of hours and for a while, I showed them the Tijuana I know (and I ate a lot of food!). Unfortunately, they also could not spend the night and left early, but they seemed extremely satisfied with the city.

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And finally on Saturday….

A group of adventurers who have been to many places in Baja before but never in Tijuana, that group of friends that likes to go new places and try everything once (they even ate crickets). They contacted me via Reddit, thus they got the Reddit discount of $5 per person. A lovely group of people who I had a blast with.

We met at the US border at 4:00 pm. Started drinking at Mamut by 5:00 pm, at around 6:30 pm dinner and more drinks at La Corriente (Cevicheria Nais). Downtown happened to have a lowrider and motorcycle show (it happens once a month). More drinks at La Mezcalera. Last stop before the border was bar Zacazonopan, but 10:00 pm came too early so they stayed for a couple more drinks, more tacos and finally got all 7 inside a cab to the border at around midnight (it was hilarious and very Mexican style).

Eating at La Corriente (potato quality pic)
Eating at La Corriente (potato quality pic)

Week-long Tijuana Adventure complete. Now back to reality and my other jobs.

Want to have a Tijuana Advnture? Check the upcoming tours or personalize a tour of your own!! NEXT TIJUANA ADVENTURE, BEER FEST April 26th!

cerv

The Adventures of Jesse, Max and Banana

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I expected these guys to show up to Tijuana during the weekend, but they ended up backing out and partying in San Diego for their Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. Hmm… another no show for my tours, they were probably too afraid for Tijuana. But I heard from them early on Monday, they have decided to check out TJ and were on their way down here. Little did they expect that Tijuana’s Monday nights are way wilder than any night SD has to offer.

The tour started at lunch time, they drove their car across and I met them in “La Corriente” a fancy place with amazing fish tacos. As we chatted and got to know a bit about each other, I find out that these guys have had adventures around the world and they take a stuffed banana with them (water guns and more fun stuff also available in the trunk of their car). After eating, we walked around the city on the quiet Monday afternoon as I showed them everything. With not much activity until the sun is down, the best option was to go to the beach.

Jesse, Max and Banana enjoying fish tacos on the beach
Jesse, Max and Banana enjoying fish tacos on the beach

Honestly, these guys reminded me of all my white friends in the USA, so everything flowed in a natural course and after a few beers it was just like hanging out with my friends from college again. From there we went to Zona Norte, where most my tours tend to end up at…

… We were there in Zona Norte and they were basically out of cash. Sorry that I had to leave the details out of how that cash was spend, but trust me, it was fun. With the few bucks they had left, I took them to Dragon Rojo Bar that coincidentally was the last night of the 36 year old legendary bar. We had tequila and beers there… and then they wanted to go back to Zona Norte

(Goodbye Dragon Rojo, you will be missed!)

After hitting up the ATM, where both got plenty of pesos to have an even funner night, we went to a different Zona Norte bar that wasn’t a gringo favorite one. All their pesos were very well spent in what was one hella fun Tijuana Adventure… I expect Jesse, Max and Banana to come down again some day soon.

“Jesse | October 2, 2013 at 9:05 pm: Mateo is the pinnacle of tour guides in Tijuana! He showed us delectable restaurants, the city, beaches, and all sorts of nightlife. Thank goodness he was there to assist with the language barriers. Take no visit to Tijuana without Mateo on your side!”

Sorry mom, but XXX sales…

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I must admit it, the idea of Tijuana Adventure is to show you the art, music, locals, etc. What I called the real Tijuana. But obviously, sex sales. My family told me I shouldn’t be doing it, but the main interest for many travelers is Tijuana’s Zona Norte (Red Light District). I had my first solo client for the XXX tour. He came all the way from New York, read much about Tijuana and really wanted to go to Zona Norte. The tour started way earlier than I would ever expect to do a nighttime tour, because it started at noon. The client needed to be back to America before 6 p.m. We started with the usual downtown tour, so he got a taste of the real Tijuana, then we ventured down to where he wanted to go, the famous Zona Norte. There’s a lot of brothels/strip clubs/whore houses there, call it what you want, you get the idea. There’s some that are the best and famous worldwide, there’s others that are virtually unknown and have little to no customers as of yet. My client read about a few of them, but due to the hour, the only good choices were the top 2 in all of Tijuana. I had a complete blast with the New Yorker that I felt bad for charging any money for my tours. But he was so grateful that he gave me a $$$ tip that I did not expect at all.

He made me realize the potential that XXX tours have, especially for daytime hours and on the weekdays. So I expect to start giving way more tours like that, though the main goal is for people to know that Tijuana is more than just that. It’s a great growing city with magnificent art, music and culture. All the beauty hidden behind a horrible façade of scary tourist traps, poverty stricken areas and sense of danger that does not exist if you are on tour with me.