Boquillas Del Carmen, Mexico (12-05-14)

Our final adventure in Big Bend National Park was a day trip to Boquillas del Carmen, Mexico.  The day started in an unusual way for this area of Texas- with fog clinging to both the roads and mountains.










  Boquillas is a small town in Mexico, that until 2011, was a “soft” border crossing. Mexicans would casually cross to shop in the United States, since the nearest grocery store in Mexico is a 3.5 hr drive down a dirt road.

 Americans would cross just as casually to explore Boquillas, eat lunch and buy souvenirs. September 11th changed all that, and devastated this small town with a population of just 300.  The border was closed.  Period.  No more crossing at all. The town inhabitants waited in vain for it to re-open, and eventually, many of them moved away to find new jobs.




Finally, in April of 2013, the border re-opened, but it will never be quite the same again.  Now Mexicans need a visa to cross into the U.S. and Americans need a passport to cross into Mexico.

Well, with passports in hand, the 6 of us began the trek to Boquillas del Carmen.  After an hour and a half drive, we reached the ranger station at the crossing, where we were briefed on the do’s and don’ts of crossing into Mexico.

Our options for crossing the Rio Grande were wading/swimming (not recommended) or paying Victor $5.00 to take us across in a boat. 

So, after a short boat ride, we were in Mexico.

The next step was to get to town, a mile up the road, where we would need to check in with immigration officials. 

Our options for that segment of the journey were to walk a mile uphill, ride in a pickup truck taxi, or ride burros.  We chose the burros. 

I think we laughed all the way up the hill.

  Our handler was Paulo.  He kept the burros moving, and we assumed that once we got up the hill, his job would be done, but we were wrong.

He walked us to the immigration building, waited for us, and gave us a tour of his town.  In fact, he stuck by us all day, right up until we crossed back over.  There aren't many jobs in Boquillas, so working for tips may be one of the better ways to make money.

Paulo spoke very little English, so the little bit of Spanish that we knew came in handy.  In fact, we learned later that one of the effects of the border closing is that the children of the town don’t speak English as well as the older people.






Paulo was very proud of the new hospital and school in town, and seemed happy to report that soon the town will have electricity, generated by a new solar station.  The residents will pay for the electricity they use, but the money will go into a fund to replace the batteries when the time comes.  Very clever.




  We worked up an appetite on the short tour, and had lunch at one of the two restaurants in town. 

The food was good, and the beer was cold!

Afterwards we wandered across the street to the other restaurant, which had a nice view of the mountains and the river.  So nice that we decided we weren’t in a rush, and sat down to have a margarita. 

The owners of both restaurants were very friendly and spent quite a bit of time chatting with us, sharing stories about their lives in this small town.

After purchasing our souvenirs, we decided it was time to head back.  The border crossing closes at 5 pm.

  Once back in the U.S., we all had to take a turn at the immigration kiosk where we inserted our passport for inspection, and spoke on the phone to an immigration officer.

All in all it was an easy process and a great way to spend an afternoon.

Big Bend Adventures (12-04-14)

Since no one can hike all day, every day, we looked for other adventurous outings to fill our time.

Eating may not seem adventurous, but dinner at the Starlight Theater is always a fun time.  Some day we’ll branch out and try other restaurants, but at this point, we've always headed here. 

The food is excellent, there is usually live music, they have $2.00 Margaritas, and you can’t beat the sunset view from their front porch.

We thoroughly enjoyed the original songs by Moses Martinez, touting the benefits of living in Terlingua, Texas.  As quirky and “off the grid” as the town is, you never have to walk anywhere in Terlingua.  There is no one who won’t stop to give you a ride. 

And, of course, the town is 90 miles from the nearest traffic light.

The hot springs are always a welcome destination after spending several days on the hiking trail.  It’s on the opposite side of the park, so we combined it with another trip. 

Cooler weather would have kept us hanging out in the 103* water longer, but we still enjoyed sitting and watching the Rio Grande River flow by.

We have had two major outings, and they were both adventures that we’ve never been able to do before:

Rio Grande Rafting Trip

Rafting down the Rio Grande is something that Paul and I have always wanted to do, but there is hardly ever enough water in the river for this particular adventure. 

With all the recent rain, the river is flowing pretty strong.  Paul and I were the only takers for this trip, so we spent the day on the water with just our guide, John Parker.

The river led us through Colorado Canyon, where the “rapids” were fun but barely worthy of their name.

Our lunch was over the top, with enough food to feed a much larger crowd- and it was all set up on a table, complete with tablecloth and paper plates.

I think the best part was our conversations with John.

  It was interesting to hear about the town and the area from the perspective of someone who decided years ago to make it his home.  John came for the hot springs, and loved the town so much he bought property 16 years ago, for a mere $100 an acre.

We learned so much from John that in the days following our river trip, our conversations were peppered with the phrase "John said"...

As for our other adventure- well, this post is getting to be too long, so I will give our other trip it’s own post..

Big Bend National Park, TX

There is no shortage of hiking trails in Big Bend National Park. We spent a good portion of a day hiking a 5 mile trail called “the Window”. Within minutes of starting out we saw a Road Runner, and several deer. We met up with a couple who were on their way back who had seen, and actually gotten pictures of, a bear. She said he was about 15 feet away, looked up and saw them, and slowly meandered off. We looked really hard, but never saw him. Too bad. The view from the “window” was unique, since you can only see out through a square area that does look like a window. From there we went partway up a different trail and although not “unique”, the view was Fabulous! We ate lunch up there, then headed back, chatting with several groups along the way.

Back at the Visitors Center, while eating ice cream, we saw a herd of a very different kind of animal that lives in the park. They are called Javelinas. They look like very strange pigs but are not pigs at all. They are pretty aggressive, apparently, and can’t be domesticated.

Later that day, I wanted to test out the settings on my camera to see if I could capture the night sky, so after dark, Paul and I drove out past town, pulled over, and waited for our eyes to adjust to the dark. The sky was perfectly clear and the Milky Way was clear as day. Its been a long time since I have seen that many stars in the sky. As a bonus, the temperature  was still in the low 60s, so it wasn’t cold, either. I tried every combination of settings I could think of, and still couldn’t get a good picture. I’ll try again, but it was really disappointing. Paul patiently waited while I took pictures, but then he heard noises in the bushes and we both decided it was time to leave. There are definitely Cougars in the park, as well as coyotes. Every night I can hear the coyotes howling.

Our agenda for yesterday was to drive the scenic road that circles around part of the park. We started off by skating down a 13 mile stretch of dirt road. Looking behind the truck as we drove reminded me of the old westerns, where the truck kicks up a huge cloud of dust that leaves a trail behind the truck. That’s what we looked like. We could tell when a car came towards us by their cloud of dust. There were several stops for us to make along the way and the first one was the Santa Elena Canyon. The Rio Grande flows through this canyon, and the walls are over 1000 feet high. It was about a 1.5 mile hike into the canyon. Once inside, it was very peaceful and quiet. We explored for quite a while before coming back out. There was a lot of mud along the river, with animal tracks in it, so we spent some time trying to figure out what animals made the tracks.

We stopped at several historic buildings along the road, one of which was an old ranch, and one was a store, back in the early 1900s. It was really clear that back then, this area had what they call an “invisible border”. People from both countries moved back and forth pretty freely and no one paid much attention to the comings and goings. Very often, Mexicans would set up homes on land that belonged to someone else. Usually the rancher whose land it was didn’t mind, since it was more security for him and a source of labor when he needed it. There was a sense of cooperation.

Looking at all the “canyon” hikes there are to do here, I thought it would be a case of seen one, seen ‘em all, but the ones we have been to all have unique characteristics. Santa Elena Canyon has the Rio Grande running through it, Tuff Canyon is a canyon created from volcanic action, so there is a magma layer and a “tuff” layer. Tuff is essentially (white) volcanic ash that has hardened. When the volcano spewed, the ash settled over the magma and hardened. Once hardened, it’s very dense and acts like glue. What was cool at Tuff Canyon, was the rocks that were magma (red/brown) in the center, surrounded by white tuff. Pretty much looked like a rock within a rock. That canyon is mostly white due to the tuff, and is very narrow, because the density of the tuff kept the water from eroding the rock too much.

Burro Mesa Pour off is also a canyon, but it’s a box canyon. We hiked a mile or so into that canyon, and obviously came to a dead end, since it’s a box canyon. I was glad we didn’t run into a bear in THAT canyon.



Today we decided that we could handle another decent sized hike, so we got up a little early and headed out to the Lost Mine Trail (4.8 miles-6850 ft/1200ft elevation gain). This is the trail that has had the most bear and mountain lion sightings, but we weren’t lucky enough to see any. The views from the top were incredible, as usual, and we were done with the hike by lunch time. There were about 25 other people on the trail at the same time, some of whom were a little loud, so I was getting a little annoyed. We had decided last night that we would leave the afternoon free to just hang out and recuperate from all the activity. Unfortunately, Paul had to spend the afternoon trying to diagnose why the air conditioning in the truck isn’t working. He doesn’t have the tools to check it out, so we’ll have to bring it in for service in El Paso. Its due for another oil change anyway, so we’ll combine the two.

Tonight Paul is making Enchiladas and Margaritas.....yum!

Big Bend National Park, Texas

          Once again we have reached a destination that has me reaching for my camera every 2 seconds.  We only got here today and I already love this place.  Its HUGE-now I know what is meant by "VAST".  We drove for miles and miles and saw nothing but mountains, canyons, and desert, and once in a while we caught a glimpse of the Rio Grande. This isn't my first time seeing the Rio Grande, so I wasn't surprised when I saw it.  I was, the first time, though.  I had always heard stories of the Mexicans coming over the border by way of the river, as if it was a miraculous feat that they got across it.  Well, we can't take our dinghy on the river because it isn't deep enough.  There are some places that its only about 4 feet wide and a foot or so deep.  Most of the river tours are not running right now because the water level is so low.

     It took us two days of driving to get here from San Antonio.   We elected to use the smaller highway and stay off the main interstate.  Paul really finds it more relaxing, and its definately more scenic that way.  We spent a night in the town of Marathon, which is a very small town, with one gas station. It is surrounded by beautiful mountains though.

       Having been here for a day, I can see why people say to get all supplies before coming.  The only food store in the town we are staying in, Study-Butte (pronounced Stoody beut), is a convenience store that just sells eggs, milk etc.  The nearest "real" grocery store is over 80 miles away.  This town, which is typical of all the towns around here, has about 15 buildings total.   Since the reviews of all the campgrounds in the area were mixed, we hadn't booked one, figuring we'd check them out in person.  We ended up choosing the one that is closest to the park, because it  has wi-fi and we have cell phone service. Its also next door to one of the very few gas stations around that sell diesel fuel. So we are all settled in.

     We took off this afternoon to scope out the area.  Earlier in the day we had spoken to a ranger, who gave us ideas on hikes that would be appropriate for us, other activities we might be interested in, and he also mentioned that we could take Rte 90 when we leave to go to El Paso, since its such a scenic route, instead of the main interstate. That is, as long as our truck can handle a 2 mile stretch of road with a  15% grade , first going up, then going down, about 15 miles out of town.

    Along the way this afternoon we drove to the ghost town of Terlingua.  The town was a mining town- they mined mercury there until the mine closed in the 1940s.  The population of the town, such as it was, abandoned the town soon after. We kept driving down rte 90, and came across an old movie set.  There are the remains of about 5 buildings there which were used in several movies including "Streets of Laredo"(1995) "Journeyman" (2000) "My Maria" music video (1995) and "the Gambler V".  We checked out the town of Lajita, which is almost as small as Study-Butte. It was a beautiful afternoon for a drive so we kept going, admiring the scenery around us. 

I have never been on a road that felt as much like a roller coaster as this road did. There were hairpin turns, huge hills, huge hills WITH hairpin turns, and many times that it looked like we'd go right off the edge. All with a speed limit of 35-50 mph. After driving for a bit we decided to check out the stretch of road with the15% grade. Oh man. We knew before we even got there that there is no way we'd take the Everest this way. Guess its the interstate for us.
Tomorrow- hiking, maybe?