Thursday and Friday the 13th in Big Bend

After settling in to our camp spot on Wednesday, we walked to Rio Grande Village to check out the facilities. There is a camp store, laundry and showers, and, most important, WI-FI!

On Thursday, November 12, we spent the day exploring the south east side of the park. This is closest to the Rio Grande and the Mexican border. We hiked the Rio Grande Village Nature trail. At the beginning there is a series of floating metal bridges along the back water of the river. We saw a blue heron in the beaver pond. We continued the walk up the hillside for views of the River and the surrounding mountains. We found the first of many “stores” where the Mexicans place little trinkets and walking sticks with a jar to pay for them. I was quite impressed with this entrepreneurial spirit, even though we heard it was illegal!. We saw many of these “stores” on our walks and later on we saw the store keepers crossing the river on horseback to collect their earnings! I thought it was quite neat.

Later in the day we drove to Boquillas Canyon which is a narrow canyon carved out by the river. You can walk down to the river, put your foot in if you want, and watch the water disappear into the canyon. It was quite strange to think that across that water was Mexico. There were men on the shore shouting to us (in quite perfect English) and going back and forth on horseback and in small row boats. There is a town called Boquillas Del Carmen where they live. You can go there if you make arrangements with the tour company. We didn’t! But, I did buy an illegal walking stick!

On Friday the 13th we finished exploring this part of the park. We drove a really treacherous road to Hot Springs. This was a homestead and there were several derelict buildings. It might also have been a resort at one time, and one of the buildings was a post office. Again we were right alongside the river. We walked to the Hot Spring which was a square concrete pool filled with hot water right on the edge of the river. Of course, we had to put our feet in and it was quite delightful.  

There seem to be a lot of tourists now, so we decided to head for the campground in Chisos Basin. The Chisos Mountains are located entirely in the park, pretty much centrally located. We climbed to about 4500’. We managed to find one of the last remaining spots in the campground. We then walked the ½ mile trail UP HILL to the visitor center and Chisos Lodge and Restaurant. We had lunch/dinner, got my passport stamped, bought some food at the camp store, and came back to the camper. Enough walking for today!