The Bend! Day 3: ¡Viva Terlingua!

We got all rested up on Day 2 and we were ready to tackle some more desert hiking on Day 3 (or at least I was). We planned to meet Dale and Amber at 8 a.m. at the Pine Canyon trail head, but we got off to a late start after another rough night in the tent. A gale blew up and pummeled our cheapo Wal-Mart tent for hours. If you’ve never slept in a tent with a 35 mph wind blowing then you haven’t lived, my friend. I finally went to sleep around 1 a.m. and Gina was awake until the wind calmed down sometime around 3. Plus we had to take down our tent and pack up because checkout of the campsite was at noon. So we showed up at the trail a little over an hour late. Luckily Dale and Amber got there only about 30 minutes before we did and were inclined to wait for us. There’s very little cellular reception in the park, so we couldn’t communicate with each other. We were all going on plans we’d made the last time we saw each other two days earlier.

On the map and in the trail descriptions this trail looked to be nonstrenuous despite the 1,000 feet of elevation gain. The problem was that about half the elevation gain comes in the last quarter-mile. And the trail for the first mile and a half was filled with pea gravel. Hiking uphill in pea gravel will tire your ass out. The trail begins in a classic Chihuahuan desert landscape: yucca, catcus, sotol, ocotillo and nondescript brush surrounding big chunks of rock here and there. The morning was cool and sunny, perfect for a hike, and the area was beautiful. And I totally failed to take any decent pictures. I didn’t even take any photos of Dale and Amber together. I think I was addled by the gloriousness of the situation. After a little over a mile, the trail drops into Pine Canyon proper where an assortment of trees takes advantage of the sheltered climate in the canyon and the additional water and the higher elevation. The trail looked a lot like trails in Arkansas except the band of trees exists in only a narrow corridor. You can look through the corridor and see the desert landscape outside. The trail ends with a steep climb up to a 200-foot pour over that supposedly has water trickling over it for much of the year. No trickle on this day.

We enjoyed a fantastic lunch of Beenie-Weenies™ and Zingers™. Here’s Gina enjoying some Beenie-Weenies™ at the base of the pour over. The pour over was all evil looking like the devil had been there and built a huge fire. The rock all the way up the cliff face was black and the jumbled rocks at the base were black, too. Since it was all downhill, the hike back was a breeze. Pine Canyon is high on my list for a return visit.

Dale and Amber had regaled us with stories about their visit to Terlingua the night before. Terlingua is a hippie-commune-type place just outside the park that caters to tourists in the Big Bend area. On our drive out of Pine Canyon, Gina asked why we couldn’t do more fun things like going to Terlingua. She kind of had a point so we headed down to the Rio Grande to partake of some real tourist-centric entertainment.

Who is Victor the Singing Mexican you ask? Check out this professionally done video:

Victor hangs out near the trail that leads into the entrance of Boquillas Canyon near the Rio Grande Village campground. Residents of the village of Boquillas del Carmen just across the river in Mexico put out crafty items along the trail for the tourists to buy. Because they can’t stay on the U.S. side of the river, they just leave a jar for you to put money in if you take one of the items. A sign posted at the trail head ominously warns that buying stuff from Mexican nationals is totally illegal and could land you in jail. Everyone we saw on the trail bought something. Victor’s got an elaborate setup. He stands in Mexico and scans the U.S. side with binoculars when he’s not singing. His assistant hangs out on the U.S. side collecting money because Victor apparently doesn’t like to rely on the honor system. Victor’s partner also sells his own array of merchandise.

The first time I went to Big Bend, way back in 1992, the border was much more fluid. People could come and go across the river virtually at will. Enforcement didn’t start until you got about 50 miles away from the river. Tourists could cross the river via john boat and go visit the little Mexican village of Boquillas.

Once the boatman let you out on the Mexican side, you would get on a little burro and ride the half-mile to the village. All along the way little kids would try to get you to buy trinkets. In the village there were a couple of bars along with a few tourist shops. I remember buying cans of Tecate for $1, which I thought was pretty neat. Boquillas basically existed due to the tourist trade. When the border clampdown came after 9/11, Boquillas just about expired. The park service now sells officially sanctioned Boquillas merchandise in the park visitor centers. Walking sticks made by Boquillas craftspeople are $18 from the park service, but we got ours down on the river for $6.

Even though the border is now rigid there’s still some shady stuff going on down there. This guy came from inside the canyon with his packhorse loaded down with something. He crossed the river to the U.S. side to avoid some deep water and then crossed back over, rode past Victor and disappeared into the desert, presumably headed for Boquillas del Carmen. Way downstream in the canyon I could see several other people and a few horses. One guy waded across the river to the U.S. side but I couldn’t see what he was doing. The two Dales and Amber and Judy were there the day before and saw similar activity. They reported a man crossed the river from the United States carrying a black formal dress that he gave to a teenaged girl on the Mexican side. The younger Dale speculated that some type of human trafficking was going on. I used my extensive knowledge of Latin American culture to opine that maybe the girl was having her quinceanera, a coming of age ceremony for girls when they turn 15. The dress probably came from the Dillard’s in Midland.

From there, in an effort to do something else fun for Gina, I suggested we keep up the full-on tourist theme going by heading to Terlingua to eat in a restaurant. I had planned to camp out in the back country that night, but I told Gina if she could finagle a room at the booked-up Chisos Mountain Lodge I’d go for staying there that night. She called them up and got the VIP cabin. Apparently a cancellation left it vacant for the night. Our transformation from campers to totally tourists was complete.

Our first stop was the High Sierra Bar and Grill at the El Dorado Hotel for some authentic Tex-Mex. The place was deserted and looked like maybe food was not high on their list of priorities. Gina got chicken fajitas and I got carne asada tacos and it turned out to be the best Tex-Mex I think I’ve ever had. The pico de gallo was so fresh I swear it was prepared when we ordered our food. The salsa was hot but great. The beef I had was lightly seasoned and the chicken was not seasoned at all, which helped with the flavor. Most Tex-Mex in Little Rock is seasoned within an inch of its life, I guess to cover up the fact that it was cooked three hours before your ordered it. I had a couple beers and Gina had a wine Margarita. (I think the place only had a beer and wine license. No hard liquor.)

Terlingua Ghost Town is filled with fallen-in adobe buildings that are open to the public and has a pretty cool cemetery filled with very old graves. A bunch of people who looked like they were part of a photography workshop pulled up the cemetery just as we did. It was hard getting any shots without an old man or woman in the background with a $5,000 camera on a tripod.

It was getting dark so we didn’t get to see much of the ghost town, which has a store and a couple of entertainment joints and art galleries. Some of the adobe ruins are inhabited and a sign asks that you respect the property of the current residents. We stopped at the old church and went inside to see the Virgin Mary painted on a bamboo curtain behind the altar. The church is obviously still used, but the doors were propped open and birds were flying in an out to their nests in the exposed rafters.

Links to other posts about this trip:
Day 4
Day 1
Day 2