Tijuana "zebras" latest casualty of Mexico drug war
Mon Apr 10, 2006 01:12 PM ET
By Tim Gaynor

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Posing in a Mexican sombrero for a souvenir photograph, a tourist pauses to rub the snout of a zebra. Throwing back its ears it starts to shift, snort and heave until a rasping bray erupts.

Actually painted donkeys, Tijuana's fake zebras have been part of life along a main strip of tequila bars and trinket stands in this fast-changing city south of San Diego, California, for more than seven decades.

Daubed with black hair-dye stripes, the white animals are hitched to oxcarts, each one fitted with painted backdrops depicting scenes that include Mayan temples, Aztec warriors and snowcapped volcanoes.

Visitors from the United States and as far afield as Japan and Italy have posed beside them for $5 (3 pound) snapshots, taken with ancient box cameras, since Tijuana grew from a two-block border village to a city with booming tourist bars and stores.

But now the familiar animals have become a dying breed as jittery tourists avoid Tijuana out of fear of being caught up in Mexico's spiralling cycle of drug violence.