It seems his successor, who Zedillo quickly heralded, is himself an outsider, somewhat out-of-touch with the 'way Mexico was.' President-elect Fox has sworn to make the corruption his enemy, and NAFTA his objective. Bert and Screwface may be upset, but who cares about frigate birds anyway? Baja, in a sense, is a symbol of Mexico's future.

Perhaps Baja - lawless, separated, out-of-touch, is the way places should be; after all, Baja is Northern Mexico's most unregulated region, and is leading the way in development, despite years of near-abandonment from Mexico City. It is no coincidence that the 1990's did great things for Mexico, the United States and Canada. It is no coincidence that despite 'squawking about immigration', California is the world's sixth largest economy in part because of immigration - legal and illegal.

Freedom from everything but one's own path - this holds true for Tijuana, as it does for the Baja outback, and immigration, economies, and Coco - rejected by order.

The states of Baja California are expected to benefit by the rise of Mr. Fox, who intends to decentralize federal rule and hand more over to the individual states. Less laws, fewer borders, more freedom for a booming state to rise and meet a new century on its own terms. The fact that Fox has many potential key cabinet members in the state of Baja California will help too; and all of them understand the border.

Borders, it is shown time and again, are largely nonsense, and culture, anyways, is geographical, not political. Someday, borders between Mexico and America will be like those between Minnesota and Canada, or North Dakota and South Dakota. And because of all this, Mexico will soon be seen as America's equal, and maybe the world's fastest growing economy. Out of Mexicali, we played Eyes of the World driving home underneath the date palms along the Salton Sea.