20-21 Nov 2019
We headed east today about 50 miles to go to the Rio Grande Village within the Big Bend National Park. Along the way we decided to turn towards the Chisos Basin a part of the Chisos Mountain range, the only mountain range to be fully contained in a National Park. Awesome drive leaving the Chihuahuan Desert as we go up and over a 5400 feet “hill” and then down into the basin surrounded by mountains. It was really cool and of course there’s a campground down there but only for small rigs and tents with many backpackers to hit the trails.
When we arrived at the Rio Grande Village we went to the picnic area on the outside of the campground. Just as we were getting the cooler out of the truck and Marie starts yelling George George look it up to the distance there was a gray bobcat going from right to left in front of us. And of course Ann Marie’s Was yelling here kitty kitty kitty.
We got the Boquillas Border crossing and spoke to the CBP officer about crossing the border. She said it was safe and after checking in with customs you proceed to the river where you pay Julio five dollars for a round-trip rowboat across the Rio Grande to a small Mexican border town up on the hill. Then you pay Julio’s cousin another five dollars to ride to burro or a truck to go up the hill to town to eat tacos, drink margaritas, and in general, have a good old Mexican time. While she insisted it was safe, we decided to take a rain check and eat our tacos in America.
As we left the border crossing we went to a river overlook. On top of this big rock were some homemade items of scorpions, jewelry, and a walking stick. There was a container that stated the prices are as marked, please put your money in here, thank you American capitalism. When you look down the hill you can see a canoe on the shore of the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, and Julio sitting under a tree looking up hill at us to see if we were making a deposit into his container. We decided to take a rain check.
