By Alan Solomon
Tribune staff reporter

TIJUANA, Mexico -- This is good. This comes from someone who grew up here, who has deep roots in Tijuana.

Elena Silvestre is 32, a graduate of the University of Southern California and owner of Silvestre's, a quality gift shop on what was Main Street but has long been
Avenida Revolucion, heart of this city's tourist district. Her family opened this store in 1917.

"Those are my grandparents," she said, pointing to an old photo on a facing wall. "That's my father," she said, pointing to another on the wall behind her.

"That," she said, pointing to another ancient black and white photo, "is my shop."

Today, Silvestre's and lesser curio shops coexist on a street with good and bad restaurants and good and bad bars, plus strip joints, discos, striped zebras and
dozens of farmacias selling cut-rate generic drugs to gringos who regularly cross the border for nothing else.

What, I asked her, is the best thing about Tijuana?

Her answer: "San Diego."

Which maybe tells you everything you need to know about Tijuana-and maybe not.

The sign at the border says Bienvenidos a Tijuana. Welcome to Tijuana. For some of the thousands who cross that line every day, many of them tourists from all over
the world who make this a day-trip from San Diego-30 minutes away by car-it will be their first visit to Mexico. They will spend a couple of hours on and around
Revolution Avenue, have a beer, recoil at the smarm, buy a magnet and forever think, So this is Mexico.

Tijuana is Mexico. Tijuana is not the best of Mexico. Not even close.

A city whose population estimates range from 1.6 million to 2.2 million, it also isn't what first-time visitors expect.

"They expect to see people in sandals spread out on their serapes, sleeping in the streets," said Ricardo Lizarraga, who dispenses information at a city tourist
information office and who speaks better English than you do. "That, and they think there are no laws here, that they can just come in here and do what they want.

"And they think we're 200 years behind the rest of the world-not just here but all over Mexico."

Here's what you won't see in Tijuana:

You won't see people sleeping it off on serapes. They use flattened cardboard cartons just like they do in first-world Chicago.

You will see signs up and down Revolution Avenue, in English and Spanish, reaffirming the existence of actual laws. One of the signs warns all that immoral conduct
will result in arrest. Two blocks from the sign, on a block of Coahuila Street, dozens of girls and women old enough to be their mothers stand-sometimes shoulder to
shoulder-offering themselves while uniformed cops munch tacos around the corner.

"Prostitution is not legal, but it's something that is going to be very difficult to get rid of," said Alberta Meza, who works for the state of Baja California's tourism
office. "You can choose to go there, but it's more for locals. It's not what we like to promote."

The jai-alai palace, a Tijuana attraction for more than half a century, closed three years ago. Agua Caliente Racetrack is closed. The dog track is closed. The Pacific
Ocean off the beaches-Playas de Tijuana-is open but polluted.

The Hotel Caesar, the downtown hotel whose restaurant gave birth in the 1920s to the Caesar salad, is open but isn't the palace it was when great matadors stayed
there decades ago. There are remnants: A lobby showcase contains three matador suits, a cape that once belonged to the legendary Manolete, and assorted ears and
tails that once belonged to bulls.

The famous restaurant, reopened as Caesar's Sports Bar and Grille after a 5-year-long siesta, has been trimmed to a bar, six booths and a few outside tables. It once
again offers the namesake salad ($6), prepared from scratch as you watch, and it's delicious. It also isn't contaminated by the local tapwater.

"You can eat it with confidence," promised part-owner Jovita Lugo, who also has introduced live music and exhibitions by local artists to the new Caesar's. In the
back of the place, where the rest of the restaurant used to be, the strippers start dancing around 4 p.m. daily.

Up and down the street near all this, donkeys-with zebra-stripes painted on, for festivity-stand waiting to be photographed with, or under, tourists.

"Give him some water," pleaded one appalled animal-loving woman. "It's not nice being out there all day."

"He eats and drinks all day," replied Roberto Navarro, the donkey's business partner.

"Well, it's not nice," snapped the woman, who turned to cross the street, yanking her mildly inebriated male companion behind her.

Navarro has heard this before. He's heard it all. He is 72 years old. He has been on this corner with generations of striped donkeys for 56 years. "It's been very slow
here since Sept. 11," he said. "No business."

Before that, he made a good living? "So-so," he said. "I make enough to play the horses, get a few beers."

(I did ask Ricardo Lizarraga about Tijuana "donkey shows." He laughed. "I haven't heard the `donkey show' rumor in years," he said. "It's like an urban legend. I
don't know what they're telling people over there, but . . . ")

When the sun sets into the Pacific, the nightly conversion begins. Within a few hours, what was seven blocks of relatively family-tolerable touristic area called
Avenida Revolucion becomes a throbbing avenue of discos-not all of them smarmy but all of them thunderously loud-punctuated by the whoops of
drunks-in-progress and the unbashful barking of street touts offering other amusements.

"Taxi, senor? Massage?"

"Ladies are waiting for you. Check it out, amigo."

"Come in . . . come in . . . "

And this is not Coahuila Street. This is the street the tourism people of Tijuana like to promote.

So . . .

Many of those who come here from Japan or France or Iowa for a quick taste of what they think is Mexico will be forever scarred by the exposure. For these
people, there is no full-body condom capable of adequate protection. The message they bring home will not be kind.

For those who merely come to party-civilians who like a rowdy time, San Diego-based military personnel who need to cut loose, California kids drawn to bars that
legally serve 18-year-olds, others whose tastes in entertainment include elements of risk and sordidness-they'll all find what they're looking for in Tijuana.

Now, for the rest of us, here's the good news, and sorry it took so long:

Those who already know and like Mexico will have to wear blinders and choose selectively, but they'll find much of what they like about Mexico in Tijuana. Most of
it is off the tourist drag but rarely more than a $5 cab ride from anywhere in town.

Good regional eats, for one thing, and way beyond basic tacos and enchiladas. At least two stylish restaurants, both in the city's slick Zona Rio area-Cien Anos and
La Diferencia-offer the kind of alta cuisine Mexicana that has won awards stateside. La Casa del Mole (the House of Mole) is justly renowned for its variations of
the namesake chocolate-edged sauce.

A bar in the city's branch of Mexico's high-end Camino Real hotel chain offers upwards of 100 tequilas. Bar captain Miguel Vega gets $66 for a shot of Herradura's
12-year-old Seleccion Suprema. Or you can buy the bottle for $759. "This," Vega said, "is the quality of the best cognac." You sip it, neat. (I settled for sniffing the
cork. It smelled expensive.)

More good hotels. Shops, including Silvestre's, that offer handmade, museum-quality wonders from all over Mexico. Classic Mexican markets, notably the Mercado
Hidalgo, with its piles of peppers and pinatas. A Cultural Center that includes an Omnimax theater and the Museo de las Californias, a fine museum (with signage in
Spanish and English) devoted to telling the story of both Californias, Alta and Baja.

Hospitable people. This is still Mexico.

Plus, bullfights in summer and one of the few wax museums anywhere whose statuary includes Bill Clinton, Jack the Ripper, Vicente Fox, Frida Kahlo, Mohandas
Gandhi and, coming soon, Tijuana's own Carlos Santana. Plus Elvis.

And, unavoidably, miles of grim, rusting corrugated metal that represents both an international border and an unmistakable warning between neighbors not at war.

Tijuana: Ugly. Exhilarating. Challenging. Delicious. Booming. Squalid. Fascinating. Safe enough, unless you look for trouble.

"Some people are very frightened to come down here," said Elena Silvestre, "and if they don't want to come down, they shouldn't. They won't be comfortable.

"You have to have an open mind. You have to be careful, but you have to have an open mind.

"It's an experience."

It is what it is, and it isn't Puerto Vallarta. It's worth two days, tops.

Be careful. Enjoy.

And don't add water to the $66 tequila. If you do-well, make it bottled water.