The Cliff Dwellers
TIJUANA — A life capsized has stranded Jose de Jesus Torres atop these craggy cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Waves crash and dolphins dance as this modern-day cliff dweller waits for another opportunity to cross the U.S. border.
Torres spends his days slinging a fishing line into the frothy sea. His friend, Orlando Bernal, sits on a rock reading a dogeared Bible. Walking atop a 30-foot wall of rocks and sand on a recent day, Torres pointed to a desolate beach far below.
"This is my backyard," he said. Then Torres turned to look at the rugged coastline stretching north to the border. "And this is my frontyard."
Torres and his friends are floaters -- like possibly thousands of others biding their time in Tijuana -- waiting until the summer cools to arrange border crossings over the mountains or across the desert. Though a thriving lodging industry caters to Tijuana's gente de paso -- people passing through -- those without money usually end up living on the streets and in alleys or sometimes on the cliffs offering views of the San Diego skyline.
Earlier this summer, Torres and Bernal were deported from California, where they lived for more than a decade and had earned enough money as construction and restaurant workers for one-bedroom apartments and hamburgers, with enough left over to send to relatives in Mexico.
Now they live at the mercy of the sea along this scenic but dangerous stretch of coast just south of Tijuana, called El Vigia, which local fishermen and residents say has long provided a refuge for those with nowhere else to go. The area is cut off from the city by steep walls of wave-battered boulders and dirt streets patrolled by stray dogs.
By night, the friends lie under the stars on a rock shelf above the ocean, lulled to sleep by the lapping surf and the howls of sea lions. Some nights they string their blankets as makeshift tents. By day, they fish or scour the caverns that pock the cliffs, searching for mussels or crabs.
The men, whose beards have grown long and scruffy, leave solitary footprints in the sand. They watch the frolicking dolphins and fall asleep under pink sunsets.
But the setting is precarious. One slip on the jagged rocks could send a man tumbling to his death.
And the men are always hungry. Torres, a 29-year-old who shields his face from the sun with a blue cap, has shed 20 pounds since he started fishing for food using a line weighted with spark plugs.
