Big Bend National Park

If you ever find yourself in the Big Bend region of Texas, you are either there for the annual chili cookoff in Terlingua or to visit Big Bend National Park. There aren't many other options.

The park's namesake region is named after the U-turn that the Rio Grande takes along the Texas border. 118 miles of river (and therefore, border) lie within the park. On one side, Mexico. On the other side, The United States. On both sides, unforgiving desert country.

Nutrients from a rock?

Big Bend National Park is a large park, but it's mostly desolate. If you are looking to see tarantulas and roadrunners, you are in the right place. There is a small population of black bears, but we didn't see any. Other than that, it's you and the cactus. And be careful where you step, because pretty much everything growing is some form of cactus containing some sort of thorns!

Upon arrival, we did a short hike into the Santa Elena Canyon. This is narrow cut in the mountains through which the Rio Grande meanders. And "meanders" is too strong of a word. Due to a persistent drought coupled with numerous water draws up stream for irrigation, there's not much of a river left by this point. In fact, the whole time we hiked the canyon, I thought we were hiking next to a creek that fed into the river, not the river itself. It was so slow that we couldn't even tell which way it was flowing, even after throwing a stick into the water.

But there's a silver lining!

There is a border crossing in another part of the park over to the small town of Boquillas del Carmen, Mexico (typically shortened to just Boquillas). You have two options at the crossing: You can take the ferry, or you can wade across the river. Because the ferry was $5 per person, and because the river was about 30 feet wide and 10 inches deep, we chose to get wet.

Note the ferry in the upper left

All it took to get into Mexico was a brief primer from a park ranger about what to expect on the other side and a quick walk across the border. If you're wondering whether or not we needed passports, we did not. Not for this part, at least. But we knew we needed them to get back into our home country, and we weren't prepared to move to Mexico, so we did have them on hand!

Upon arrival in Mexico we were greeted by a few dozen horses and donkeys whose handlers were willing to let us ride into town... for a fee, of course: $5 for a donkey and $8 for a horse. The walk was 2/3 of a mile, and it was a beautiful day, so we declined. But many others took them up on the offer.

There isn't a whole lot going on in Boquillas. It was founded as a silver mining town over a hundred years ago, but the mine is long gone, and it's just a tourist destination at this point. Also, the border just opened back up 3 days before we arrived. It had been closed for 20 months, which must have been a very hard blow to the people of Boquillas. I didn't see a single business in town that wasn't oriented towards tourists. Even the kids were in on it; every kid we saw tried to sell us woven bracelets.

After taking 10 minutes to walk the entire town, we settled into one of the two restaurants for lunch. The restaurant had three dishes on the menu that day: goat tacos, chicken tamales, or cheese enchiladas. We went with all three so that we could share.

Asher and Jordan weren't huge fans of Mexican food (though to be honest, I have a hunch that the preparation leaned American). Caleb ate a number of goat tacos and was game to try the other dishes as well. The enchiladas did not have a whole lot of flavor, nor did the tamales. Where we found the flavor was in the two salsas. Wow! The kids all enjoyed the mild, and we all tried the jalapeño vinegar. I struggle with too much heat, and this was just over the edge, but the flavor was fantastic.

We enjoyed a few Mexican Cokes (made with cane sugar instead of corn syrup)

We were told by the park ranger in no uncertain terms that we needed to be back across the border by 4 if we didn't want to spend the night in Mexico, so we headed back after lunch. We didn't want to cut it too close, and we had one other thing we wanted to do while in the park: visit the hot spring!

There is a hot spring that feeds into the river in a corner of the park. It was discovered a long time ago and used to have a building over it. Tourists would come to let the spring cure whatever ails them.

The building is long gone, but the foundation remains. Sit within the foundation and you can enjoy the 105° water. Step outside the foundation, and you are in the Rio Grande. Step a little farther from the foundation, and you are in Mexico!