Visiting Mexico and Dipping our toes in the Rio Grande on a very long day in Big Bend

Our motor home is parked in the town of Terlingua, Texas, which is just a few miles outside of the west gate of Big Bend National Park. That sounds like a very close spot for visiting everything inside a park, right? But this is one of the largest national parks in the country, and nothing is "close." Today we're heading to Rio Grande Village, which is in the most easterly section of Big Bend. It was 35 miles and over an hour's drive to get to the Rio Grande Village visitor center to get the best information for our full day of activities. The ranger's advice was to visit Mexico today, and we had remembered to bring our passports. So we headed to the Boquillas border crossing.

National park visitors get a short orientation talk before they walk down to the Rio Grande River. We were told that the usual option is to pay for the boat ride across the river. We watched as a load of visitors climbed on board and this Mexican gentleman walked the boat across the Rio Grande.

But we had brought water shoes, so we dipped our toes in the Rio Grande and walked ourselves over to Mexico. With the rocky bottom of the river bed, we were glad to have shoes, but we didn't even get our shorts wet in our journey across the water to another country.

Once on the other side of the river, visitors have several other options. Close to 100 burros were saddled and ready to take visitors up the road to the village of Boquillas. We also saw several horses, or a ride in a pickup truck was also available.

We changed out of our water shoes and into our hiking shoes, and we just walked ourselves up that half-mile dusty road. The worst part of the walk was the dust when we were passed by a pickup.

But we actually walked faster than the burros in front of us.

Once we made our walk across the desert, our first view of the town of Boquillas was the burro parking lot. We were greeted by several young children selling bracelets. 

The national park ranger showed us an aerial picture of the village of Boquillas. The building circled in red is where we were supposed to check in with Mexican customs agents. But they were currently out of the $3 admission bracelets, so they were closed. 

We continued up the dusty street of Boquillas to see the two food options for lunch. We had gotten a recommendation for the fancy restaurant with river views. It had a horse and a stray dog in the parking lot out front.

But we opted for the little place across the street when the owner waved us in. Before we knew it, we were sitting on the outdoor patio right on the dusty road at the Boquillas Restaurant.

This place has only three options on the menu, and they change daily. The first choice was cabrito tacos. We recognized half of that choice, so we ordered that with a couple drinks.

We found out "cabrito" means "goat." We must say that goat meat is very tasty! It was nicely seasoned and tasted very much like pork. With some fresh salsa and jalapenos it was a great lunch.

We were outside, where several stray dogs were hoping for a dropped bite. This guy sat behind our chairs with those soulful eyes, but we ate every bite without sharing.

After a nice lunch, we walked up the dusty street where the local residents had home-made items for sale in their front yards

Later we found out that this village is four hours away from the nearest grocery store, and their only job option is selling to tourists. But we have to say that their prices were the highest we have ever seen in Mexico.

The fancy restaurant had an indoor shopping area, but people that live in a motor home don't have room for souvenirs. Our only purchase was some cookies, which we gave away to those children selling bracelets.

We took a few more pictures around town of the residential area . . .

and the bar that was empty.

We had a picture taken at the river view, with us on the Mexico side of the river.

We were glad we made this trip across the border, and we decided that our method of walking instead of riding a burro . . .

and getting our toes wet instead of riding in the boat was a good (and inexpensive) way to visit Mexico for us. We went back through the U.S. customs process in the ranger office on the other side. The ranger helped with setting up a video chat with a customs agent in El Paso, that had to scan our passports and make sure that our faces matched our photos before we could officially re-enter the United States.

The next hike of our Rio Grande day was into Boquillas Canyon--on the U.S. side of the border. It started with a view of the river far below us. Now the Rio Grande is south of us, instead of to our north.

We could see a Mexican horse getting a drink in the river. The ranger at the visitor center had told us that they have hundreds of Mexican domestic animals that make illegal crossings every day.

From our perch we could also see Mexican sheep.

As we hiked down into the canyon, we watched as three Mexican donkeys came to the river.

We assumed that the leader of the group was old. Even though he arrived first, he was walking with a stilted gait and moving slowly.

Then we realized that his front legs were tied together. The rope hobbles were the reason he was walking slowly. The bell tied around his neck was evidence that this donkey has escaped before.

The young burro was so cute that Denisa had to take another picture of him and his reflection in the Rio Grande River.

As we walked to the canyon, a Mexican man on horseback had set up a mobile souvenir stand on the trail. We had read that this was illegal, even though we would see it several times during our time at Big Bend National Park. Visitors are cautioned not to buy anything, because it can be confiscated by the rangers.

Even though it was hot, we had a beautiful blue sky day at Boquillas Canyon.

The Rio Grande has carved a path through the tall cliffs on both sides.

The trail continues on the U.S. side of the river, even though it gets a little more challenging at times.

A ranger in a red canoe passed us. The water in the river is very low. We have heard that this is more like kayak-assisted hiking, because the boats have to be carried over so many low spots in the water.

When we got to the end of our trail, we were wishing for our water shoes (instead of our hiking boots) so we could continue up the canyon.

The rocks are tough on bare feet, but we did take off our shoes and dipped our toes in the Rio Grande for the third time today.

This is a 2.4-mile hike on a hot day in a beautiful place.

While we enjoyed some local animals on this hike, we also noticed some local flowering plants today. The sweet acacia blooms are leaving a sweet smell on the trail.

We saw the first prickly pear cactus blooms on this hot day. Spring has come to the desert, even though the temperature feels like we have jumped on into summer.

The next stop was the Rio Grande Village Nature Trail. While this is listed as a .75-mile hike in the park newspaper, that doesn't include the extra mile from the parking area, or the extra .75 mile if you hike the spur to the Rio Grande River. We took that spur trail, and again we could dip our toes in the Rio Grande.

The description also failed to mention the steep elevation gain up to this view point.

From that tall look-out we could see the river and miles of Mexico beyond.

If you look closely, you can also see that horse-back riders also make that river crossing on a regular basis.

We zoomed in to see more than one man crossing from one country to the other.

While we felt that we got a longer trail than we bargained for, our hike back to the pickup took us through the Rio Grande campground. This section has no hook-ups, so campers were outside this afternoon because it would be too hot without air-conditioning to be inside. The birds must like this campground because we spotted some woodpeckers, a vermillion flycatcher, and this pyrrhuloxia.

A relative of another crested bird, the pyrrhuloxia is sometimes called the desert cardinal. This female is a little less colorful than the male, just like Denisa is less colorful than Mark.

We've had a full day on this eastern side of Big Bend national park, but we have another stop before we head home. We braved going down a gravel road with our newly-patched tire, so we could get to the trail head for the hot springs.

At one time a spa was built on this section of the Rio Grande, where a thermal spring pumps 106-degree water from deep in the earth. At one time a two-story bath house was standing in this location. Now all that is left is the foundation, which still forms a pool that contains the hot water. 

On a hot day, it didn't sound like any fun to immerse ourselves in that hot water. But Denisa did join the crowd to dip her toes in this hot Rio Grande water.

That made it feel even better to slip around the edge of the rock foundation and feel the cooler flowing river water.

Mark was the smarter one who stayed out of the hot water completely . . .

and just went straight to dipping his toes in the cooler water of the Rio Grande down-river from the crowd.

As we looked up the river, we saw more Mexican livestock crossing the border. It looks like these horses have been grazing in the United States, and were now heading home to Mexico.

The sun was low in the sky as we headed the pickup back west towards home. But then we remembered that we had planned to make a stop at Dugout Wells. This is the only time we will be in this part of the park, so we made a quick drive to this old farm site that now has a nature trail.

The clouds are forming lines of ripples across the sky in the east.

The silhouette of Denisa, an old windmill, and the desert cactus were getting hard to see in the fading light.

The distant Chisos Mountains are in a haze as we started the hour-long drive to get back to our motor home in Terlingua.

We left this morning when the sun was rising, and we were still in the park as the sun was setting. That's a very long day in Big Bend National Park, and our legs are tired from all the hiking. But we can't seem to get any sympathy from our friends and family when we describe our arduous days that include "work" like dipping our toes in the Rio Grande.