A mile or so upstream from the main River Camp there’s a hot springs slightly above river level on the American side. Someone years ago made it a little resort with baths made of cement and stone, covered with a wooden building. Today the buildings are gone but the foundations remain, rectangular tanks almost filled with river sand where the thermal water still flows, so people can lean back against the stones, lay their arms along the top of the short walls, bask in the hot water and dangle their fingers in the cool Rio Grande flowing by.
European tourists find this spot and relax, a steep hillside above them on the American side and open desert to the south, across the river. In conversation they always ask, “So, Mexico is nearby?”
“Yes,” we answer. “That’s Mexico across the river.”
“What, ten meters away?”
“Yes,” and we throw a rock. “I’ve just thrown a rock into Mexico.”
“What, I can visit Mexico by walking across this stream?” They get up and make their way through the rather swift, knee-deep water thirty feet to dry land on the other side and have, officially, entered Mexico, hardly another soul for miles.
The proposed controversial border crossing at Boquillas del Carmen is back at the River Camp, where RV’s park and there are complete facilities. Those same European tourists are amazed to find there is a little Mexican town across the river there, friendly, safe, with real Mexican food (which is the best in the world by far), but there is no bridge.
It’s called a border crossing but it’s actually just a decent place to ford the river. A sturdy 4-wheel drive truck can make it but the river goes into a little bend there, narrows and speeds up, and there are steep banks on either side that are a bit of a challenge for people on foot, though the same truck can make it in granny gear.
It’s an old dirt road river crossing with chunks of concrete here and there where people have tried to improve it over the years, but the river takes it all. You can roll your pants up and ford the river on foot, or try it in your pickup—if you’re not too attached to it—but the best way is to get in the row boat the Mexicans have and let them pull you across with a rope, with their pants rolled up. Six or eight people can get in the boat at one time and they squeal and stay ready to jump as the waves break against the side.
In Boquillas del Carmen there is no electricity, no gasoline, though there is a truck that goes back and forth to the distant city when necessary. Burros are the main transportation and the town is about a mile from the river to avoid floods, so tourists walk the dirt road up into town or pay for a burro ride. There are no motors, no horns, no pavement, no street vendors—visitors have gone back 100 years.
The town started when valuable minerals were found in the area, a mining town as is common in Northern Mexico and the American Southwest. The mines occasionally provided a little work, but tourism was the main enterprise for decades before the crossing was closed in 2002, a sad event. Tragic, we all thought, that this tiny pleasure had to be sacrificed for border security—yet the border is either secure or not secure, darn it.
Before the closing, Mexicans would cross the river to sell little copper wire scorpions or chunks of calcite, big, beautiful, dark blue crystals from the mines. Those vendors were from the heart of Mexico, the people who make you wonder why you live in America instead of over there.
A few miles downstream, just outside the park boundary, an American mining company built a one-lane cement bridge across the river in the 1930s to connect their headquarters to the mines in Mexico. The headquarters is still there, a rude, industrial complex where we used to be able to rent a bunk bed for next to nothing and have breakfast with the watchman the next day.
The center of the little Mexican town across the bridge, on a low hill, is dominated by a whitewashed adobe church with an adobe steeple. Though it’s now a ghost town and the bridge is blocked by a big chunk of concrete, the church is still there, about two miles away, and looks the same as always. On an overcast day years ago, the clouds broke slightly and one beam of light came down to spotlight that little white church, and those who were there still talk about it, that no matter how far you are from civilization, God is watching.
About ten miles even farther downstream is another ancient crossing at the mouth of Maravillas Canyon. There is no one there. An old adobe on the American side, above flood level, and scattered, rusty, steam engine parts show some attempt at settlement but it has returned to its natural state. Recent floods changed the river bed making large, deep pools where people and cattle used to cross, where we used to explore the “descansos” or waiting areas tramped down in the tall reeds by smugglers. Now it’s too dangerous to go in there, but give it time.
This is one of the places where the Comanches crossed to make their raids on Mexican ranches, and bring their captives back.
On the old maps, when this was all Mexico, the entire region down into the green Rio Grande Valley was labeled the “Despoblado,” the unpopulated region, despite evidence of Native American occupation. Today there is a thin veneer of civilization, not very many more people, the same vast distances, and a few high-tech antennas on the mountain tops.
Except for the Ojinaga/Presidio settled region, most of the area remains unchanged from the 19th century. Some day, an international freeway will connect the Pacific Ocean with Canada and run right through here, but that will come after the politicians have argued and divided the future spoils.
Today, pictures of the local hero Pancho Villa are common in shop windows. In an Ojinaga barber shop, or dentist office or cantina you will be told the stories of his outwitting the Americans again and again.
He is the Robin Hood of the border in every way, except for the wagonload of gold he buried in a remote canyon within sight of the river, pirate style, the witnesses buried with the gold. Some of those narrow little canyons, accessible only by the river, are cratered now by picks and shovels—but the gold is still there, somewhere.
The little town of Candelaria, fifty miles upriver from Ojinaga on both the American and Mexican sides, has electricity but, because it’s so far to get a tank of gas, horses are tied by many houses. Relatives live on one side of the river or the other, no difference, and crossing the river bareback the water comes up almost to the horse’s belly.
A good friend’s aunt died there years ago and the law says the remains must be interred with 48 hours, so relatives were called to dig the grave and she was buried in time to avoid embalming in Presidio. Searching for her grave on that little hilltop overlooking the river where it runs between canyon walls for miles into the distance, we could not find her.
The graves are not in rows, they are here and there, covered in river rocks to thwart the coyotes, in piles the size of the hand dug graves which are the size of the occupants, with only a large round rock sometimes placed at the head as a marker.
This is old Mexico, right here in the USA, and it is precious to us. This is why we welcome the opening of a small, informal border crossing, a slight return to normalcy.
Richard B. Jones is a bilingual probation officer, migrant teacher and welfare worker in rural West Texas; he has lived and worked in many places including China and the Middle East. His blog is: TheCaprock.com
