Tijuana Swimmin Club

Jeff Edwards is a cliff-jumping film-maker and regular contributor at Stay Wild magazine with army of adventurous friends we call the "Swimmin Club."

Here's what happened when the Swimmin Club went to Tijuana, Mexico...

"I grew up in Southern California, so when I tell people I’ve never been to Tijuana they’re very surprised. That’s where kids went to party if they were under 21, but I got a fake ID when I was 15 that said I was 31. I found it in a field next to the Wienerschnitzel by the Showcase Theater in Corona. It wasn’t even a driver’s license. It was a Green Card for a guy named Raul Rubio Muniz. We looked nothing alike. So to finally visit TJ at age 33 was pretty strange—but fuck it, why not.

Sanuk gave us a bunch of flip-flops and some rafts to go dicking around at a waterpark called El Vergel on the outskirts of TJ. We gathered a huge posse, got a bunch of rooms at Hotel Ticuán, and spent the weekend partying. We rented a private bus to get to the park and raged the whole way there. The driver obviously didn’t care we were chugging tequila the entire time. We drove up, waited in line, and then got ready in the co-ed locker room. 

After lotioning down, we went to a palapa that sold Tecates for 25 pesos, which is about $1.50 US. They also had micheladas for $3, so we pounded down a few of those as well. 
My mom’s work rented the water park Wild Rivers in Irvine for their company picnics when I was a kid, and I would spend the whole day sliding and getting water up my ass. But if I tried to do something stupid, like go down head-first or naked, I would immediately get yelled at by the staff. At El Vergel, they don’t give a fuck what you do. Pretty much the more stupid and dangerous the act, the more the workers laughed and told you to go for it. 

Because of how relaxed the rules were, some of us got pretty fucked up. We all got tons of scrapes and bruises, I ate shit trying to jump over a fence, and two people in our group got thrown in the drunk tank. Our friend Virgil must have got drugged ‘cause we found him passed out on the cement with the paramedics trying to resuscitate him. So, of course, we teabagged him. 

After the park, we took our bus back to the hotel and took a nap for a bit. Then we got up and went to the strip club." 

This adventure was made with help by Sanuk
Directed // Filmed // Edited by Jeff Edwards
Drone Footage by Renee Lusano
Music by Guantanamo Baywatch