Water in the Desert; Moominmama in Mexico

 

Wherein Moominmama camps near the Rio Grande and takes advantage of the chance to visit Boquillas,  Mexico...

Having seen the mountains of Big Bend National Park and Santa Elena Canyon on the west side, Moominmama opted to camp in Rio Grande Village for a few days to see what life was like along the river. It came as a surprise to find there is a legal border crossing between this area of the park and a small town called Boquillas del Carmen in Mexico.

So Moominmama made her first ever trip to Mexico! This involved a walk-in one-room border station on the U.S. side, then a stroll down to the river where rowboats manned by the Mexicans could ferry one across for $5 round-trip. But as luck would have it, the river was only knee deep at this spot, and Moominmama just walked across!

Once across, visitors can get a ride in someone's truck or hire a horse or burro to walk the half-mile into town. Again, Moominmama opted to go under her own power. We were instructed to stop in town to pay an $8 admittance fee. My visa turned out to be a blue wristband, much like you get at a concert venue except with official language on it. From there I was free to wander the town and visit one of the two restaurants.

Boquillas turns out to be a very small town, dirt roads only, yards with chicken coops and stick-and-branch horse shelters, adobe churches, a school and a small but modern health center. A local told me there are about 250 people living there, relying almost entirely on the tourist trade for income.

The main street is lined with small stands, selling souvenirs of embroidered aprons, decorative pots, woven bracelets, straw hats, small stuffed animals and critters made of wire and beads.

After strolling around, Moominmama joined two other women at one of the restaurants to enjoy a plate with tacos, enchiladas and a tamale. My new friends also celebrated with margaritas. One of them had traveled extensively in Mexico and said Boquillas was an old-style Mexican town, rare for tourists to see these days.

Boquillas is, in fact, the last surviving town on the border of Big Bend National Park, and locals move across the river easily, offering tamales and empanadas to hikers, setting up handmade souvenir displays with lock boxes for honor-system payments along popular trails. This is all technically against park rules, but even the rangers buy the tamales.

I saw one cowboy herding border-ignorant horses back across the river to the Mexican side. And Customs and Border Protection doesn't bother them because they return to their side of the border. It doesn't look like these border guards are hellbent on a wall.

It's not near the river but along the roads out that CBP sets up check-points to ensure non-U.S. citizens are not entering illegally. This was not what was envisioned when Big Bend was established as a park. Cooperation between the two countries was part of the deal, with protected lands on both sides and Mexicans joining with U.S. park staff on fire crews for example.

According to a park ranger, all that started to change after 9/11, affecting what was then a handful of towns catering to tourists along Big Bend's riverside. Between post-9/11 security and then COVID, the other towns' economies collapsed and families moved away, leaving only Boquillas. If a wall is ever built here, Boquillas will likely join the other ghost towns.

Besides visiting Mexico, Moominmama has been doing lots of hiking in other areas of the park. One of my favorites took me up a dirt road to Grapevine Hills and a spot called Balanced Rock. 

I walked up a long, dry valley to a fun, rocky climb that gave me this view of the route I'd come. One other adventure worth mentioning came just before I entered the park. The Chihuahuan desert has multiple natural springs bubbling up in unexpected places throughout, and one of the most famous is now a state park called Balmorhea.

In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps was put to work building a giant stone swimming pool that captures the spring water as it flows through.

Moominmama took a day to lounge "poolside" and to swim in its waters with native pupfish and softshell spiny turtles.

It provided just the refreshment I needed before committing to a week and a half in what's mostly a dry and dusty Big Bend. But with the sun setting behind the Chisos Mountains and the Rio Grande in the foreground, this national park has proved to have its marvels, even if easy access to showers isn't one of them!