Don’t Tell Anyone About My Secret Trip to Nogales

Shh. Don’t tell anyone. This is a great time to visit Nogales, Mexico.

Listening to rock music and Pod Save America, I made the 80-mile drive on I-19 in an hour and a half. Traffic was light at 9 a.m. on Saturday, and the speed limit was 75 mph most of the way.

TIP: Slow down dramatically at milepost 60, where the speed limit drops gradually to 35 mph. It’s a speed trap, and the cops are on the lookout.

I headed to my secret parking meters on N. Sonoita Avenue near the big McDonald’s just north of the border. I had brought a bag of quarters and pumped the meter to 3 hours so that I wouldn’t be rushed—no need to pay for a parking lot.

Wearing a white SPF shirt and wide-brim hat, I walked for 10 minutes to the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry. My U.S. passport was in my pocket. You can use a REAL ID Arizona driver’s license to get back to the U.S., but I didn’t want to chance it.

The big surprise was the lack of crowds. No pedestrians. No lines. No delays. No ICE goons in black masks.

Meanwhile, you’ve got Trump bellowing on Fox about sending troops to the border like it’s D-Day. The man imagines every stroll into Mexico as a military incursion requiring tanks and soldiers instead of sunscreen and sneakers.

Across the border, the vista opened up to an empty courtyard on Camino Pesqueira at about 11 a.m. There are lots of dentists, pharmacies and artworks. Again, there were no crowds. 

So much for the “invasion” Trump rants about. Maybe if he visited a pharmacy in Nogales, he’d calm down—though I doubt even the finest anti-anxiety meds could fix that delusion.

Nogales, Mexico, is generally considered safe for tourism, especially if you follow these five rules. Like in any other city, it is wise to remain vigilant about your belongings.

Ignoring the occasional hawkers, I made a beeline to Farmacia Nogales at Camino Pesqueira 34, where I’ve been shopping for 10 years. I had called ahead to the proprietor, Javier, to make sure he was open. (Simply dial 011-52-631-157-2848.)

Javier, age 64, is congenial and speaks English well. We chatted, and he said that over the weekend, he was going to grill out. He carries brand-name prescriptions, legal medicine for sleep, anxiety, pain, ADHD stimulants and more. It’s all packaged in Mexico.

I bought my wife Salbutamol asthma medicine for $5 a box. In the U.S., it is known as Albuterol, and it sells for $50. That’s right—the same medicine, different price tag. But rather than fix that, Trump would rather roll Bradley Fighting Vehicles down to the border like it’s a Mad Max sequel.

Prescription drugs are more expensive in the U.S. than in any other country in the world. We typically pay around 3–4 times as much as in other developed countries. That’s for the same drug sold by the same company. It reflects protectionist policies that the federal government has implemented to maximize profitability for the pharma industry at the expense of consumers.

I asked Javier for a good lunch spot, and he recommended El Marcos in the Hotel Fray Marco – a four-block walk. Javier also suggested skipping a trip to Rocky Point and instead going to San Carlos, a charming beach town that is less expensive.

Javier said Americans need to support the economy of Nogales to keep this wonderful place going. With a population of 265,000, Nogales is a bustling key transportation hub where goods move between Mexico and the U.S. It’s also a popular tourist shopping destination and a hub for maquiladoras (manufacturing plants).

If Trump had his way, the streets here would be crawling with soldiers in camouflage and ICE agents on power trips, terrifying the same local families whose towns make cross-border commerce possible.

Javier and I shook hands and told him I would also grill steaks this weekend. I hit the road, zipped through the Border Patrol station 25 miles north of Nogales, and made it back to Sweet Home Tucson by 1:30 p.m.