2019 Rio Grande - part 14, Big Bend Natl. Park: 1 of 4 deserts, a river crossing, a canyon, a silver mine, firefighters, a tent city - Travel With Us

Today we drove into the eastern part of Big Bend National Park toward the Rio Grande. As we’ve said before, every couple of minutes our views change, from craggy mountains to arroyos to broad valleys. Even the colors of the rocks keep changing; it’s so beautiful. Here are some of the parts of the eastern section that we enjoyed.

Chihuahuan Desert – 1 of 4 in North America

Barn walking out in the Chihuahuan Desert

Four deserts in North America: Great Basin, Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan. This last desert extends south for 300 miles into central Mexico and most of it lies in a high plateau between mountain ranges.

these 4 plants characterize this particular landscape

river crossing

Rio Grande Village is now a place for camping, both boondocking
and with hookups. Before the park was created, the U.S. town
bordering the river was in this area. Boquillas crossing is
where we’re going now.

Border crossing building. We hadn’t brought our passports because
of all the unrest at the borders but found out that our enhanced
drivers licenses would have work for crossing here—but we were short
of time so only checked out the crossing. So much to see and so little time.

This low-tech crossing is the only way to cross the Rio Grande at this point. Two rowboats keep going back and forth. The family in front of us had their groceries and their small wagon to take back home with them. For tourists, burros were available for riding into town. We neglected to ask about the cost for the boat or burro ride.

*History of Boquillas.* The town was created during the silver mining in the 1890s (info. following), and population declined when mining declined. The Sada family became an institution in this area with their store and cafe in what’s now Rio Grande Village (campsites).

countries are partnering in maintaining
the area for future generations

Many hoped for an international park for maintaining the area and letting families go back and forth across the river easily. 9/11 put a kibosh on that idea, but perhaps in the future it could happen. The people in these small communities seem to be more interested in their community than being aligned to either nation. Just an observation.

Park Ranger law enforcement are staffing this crossing since no commerce is being transported that would require Customs and
Border Patrol agents. I felt small next to them.

Boquillas Canyon

We climbed up to get a view but not down to the canyon entrance.

curved bowl in the middle of the picture is the mouth of the canyon

the river cut through the rock over the years, slow but steady

Silver, zinc, and lead ore mine

In the early 1900s, this aerial tramway spanned the desert near here
for *6 miles* to another valley. It carried 90 buckets at a time, delivering
7 tons of ore per hour to the terminal at the end of the tramway. Then
a wagon or truck took the material to the closest railroad. Amazing.

bucket used on the tramway for carrying mined ore

firefighters

We heard about these men when we were talking to Tracy at the Castolon visitors center on the west side of the park. She said this group of men are so important in case of fire, because if they had to use national park firefighters, they were based too far away. The crew from Boquillas loves to come to the U.S. to fight fires whenever needed.

When we were at the visitors center, we overheard the rangers saying that the campgrounds were full for the weekend. When we drove around, we saw lots of open spots, but since it’s the Easter long weekend, we figured they’d be filled soon.

When we got back to our campsite, we saw tents set up next to us and wherever there was space. These campers were turned back at the entrance because of no available spaces. We did have a tent city here for the night. Almost all of these campers are gone today, so they much have found spots in the park.