Ends of the Earth

Seems like some of our best travels are to places that few people visit, and, perhaps, that few people would ever want to visit.

I'm sure that lots of very nice people have ventured to the Big Bend National Park in far southwest Texas, but I've never known anyone who has. For some reason, Ed had this park on his list of places he wanted to visit and I was only too happy to tag along. The problem is that it is very hard to get to. That didn't stop us. Last month, we boarded a Southwest Air flight to Austin, rented a car, spent the night in Austin, drove 8 hours, arrived at the tiny town of Marathon, spent the night, drove another hour, arrived at the entrance to the park, drove another hour to the Chisos Mountain Lodge, the only accommodations in the entire park. We had arrived.

It was like no other place I have been before: a weird mixture of dessert and high mountains; bone dry. Nothing lush to be seen. Beautiful in its own right.

As arid as it was, occasionally we would stumble upon the most beautiful wildflowers. Texas State Flower Blue Bonnets growing along the roadside...

...or a prickly pear cacti in bloom...

or a Huisache tree adorned with yellow pompoms....

The hiking is spectacular; offering beautiful views around ever bend; unusual flora and fawna at every turn. Oaks, pinyons, and junipers mix with desert scrub and grasslands. Birds, lizards and deer dart out the corner of my eye.

One afternoon, we drove across to the far western edge of the park, the one that borders Mexico, separated only by the mighty Rio Grande. Except it wasn't mighty. If I took a running start, I could leap across it and end up in Estados Unidos Mexicano. But with my luck I'd land in prison for a year. I didn't leap.

This tiny stream is all that flowed between the two countries and it was the only free flowing water we saw the entire time in the park. Occasionally, we would drive over a bridge, but below would only be parched earth, usually with a nearby sign warning of flash flooding. Drinking water was equally scarce. No water fountains to be found; no place to fill up a Nalgene; one must request a glass of water in the Lodge restaurant.  Makes me thirsty just to think about it.

One of the reasons that I think Ed was so keen on visiting the park is that it is known as a refuge for hundreds of species of birds. A birder's paradise! More than 450 bird species spotted! We were sure that every bush, every tree, every dessert meadow would be teeming with exotic birds and we were willing to travel a very long distance to add them to our life lists. Except the birds were nowhere to be found, or almost nowhere. We woke early and hiked late to find them. Slowly, we added birds to our list. It took great patience, but we would occasionally see a roadrunner, or a Mexican Jay, or an acorn woodpecker. But mostly, we were a bit disappointed in the number of bird species that we saw.

The last afternoon we were in the park we drove to the far southeastern edge, to the campgrounds at the Rio Grande Village, near the Boquilas Canyon. Back in the 1940s, a series of irrigation canals were built to bring water to the nearby land, making farming possible. As a result, a number of cottonwood and sycamore trees grew in the relatively lush valley. Water + trees = birds!

As soon as we starting hiking we started seeing the most wonderful birds: colima warblers, tufted titmice, vermilion flycatchers, ladder-backed woodpeckers, roadrunners, cassins kingbirds, chipping sparrows, golden-fronted woodpeckers, yellow warblers, western wood peewees, and white-winged doves. No sooner would we see one interesting bird, another would appear. We spent the entire afternoon working our way further and further down the valley – thrilled every time we saw a new bird. If this is what every birdwatcher could experience every time they went watching, there would be a lot more birdwatchers in the world. It was a great way to end our time in the park -- worth every mile we travelled.

So, that's my report of our time in the park. We also had a wonderful time in Austin and St. Antonio, but that's a whole other blog post. Best saved for another day.