Visit Boquillas
5am came cold. There’s lines to wait in, coffee to drink, and a mountain of enchiladas on the other side of the alarm, so I’m awake. I don’t know what people in Alpine do for work, but as I drive through the three stoplights out of town I come to the realization that it doesn’t start before 6am on a Saturday.
Just across the border from Big Bend sits Boquillas Mexico, which has occupied the mind of anyone that has prodded West Texas looking for something. There’s been songs written about it, myths surrounding it, and nostalgia piercing every sentence committed to paper describing it. Is it the remnants of how things used to be? Is it an oasis in the desert with lovingly made enchiladas? Is it essentially a Chuck E. Cheese existing solely to separate you from your money while appealing to your lowest common denominator senses? Answers are never as straightforward as you would like.
For now I only have enough brain cells firing to know there’s only one destination this truck has ahead of it that matters. With my addiction riding shotgun I squint for the sign through the bug riddled windshield.
The glow of V6 cafe, Marathon Texas, god save my soul. It’s a north star guiding light holding my thread of sanity in a bitter cup I want to melt into. The barista looks frantic. There’s 4 of us in the coffee shop and she says the rush is about to hit, that I’m the whitecap you see on an approaching wave before it crashes down on you. While I have just enough caffeine in me now to be curious about what “being in the weeds” in Marathon looks like, I’m fine missing the show. She’s already my best friend and dealer this morning and I don’t want to give her the chance to fall off that pedestal. A few hills, some dust, and a shifty border crossing are all that stand between me and where I want to go. I push the truck forward towards the empty long stretch of road between here, and there.
No cell reception and the sun breaking over quiet mountains is a surefire sign that I’m on the right path. The first sign of life is a group of 8 people that missed the V6 turnoff and look like if you checked their pictures from the last 5 days you wouldn’t see a wardrobe change. Like us, they’re standing in the cold outside of a wood box ranger station waiting for the door to open and the overnight permits to get released. A meandering basecamp check-in, permit purchase, and glove box PB & J puts us still on time for Mexico. This is an 8 hour journey for a 5 minute rowboat ride reward. Back in the truck and down the road we’re now parked in a dirt lot outside the U.S. customs office. Two guards argue with a woman about the legality of her dog seeing Mexico and wave us through. We’ve given two friends a break from their week of camping, so with them in tow our rowboat reservation is a 4 top now. We walk down the dirt path to the river reading placards describing this unofficial crossing, which only makes one curious about what an official crossing is.
Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be getting a passport stamp.
Four minutes of walking and two stories later we’re at the river and the scoreboard looks fixed. It’s a $5 roundtrip to cross 20 feet of river. I don’t think there’s much of a Plan B since the water looks like the color of Swiss Miss hot chocolate and I don’t see Wonka anywhere in sight. Onto the boat, paddles over the side, row. Ten good moves and we’re across and confronted with the Boquillas board of tourism.
No we’re not. We’re approached by donkey handlers looking to give us a $10 donkey ride for 100 meters. Pass.
Boquillas is dusty. There’s no way around it. It coats your every interaction. Every step towards town introduces a new spoonful of dust sugar to the insides of your soles. My walking companion has less concern with the dust and more concern with the amount of mushrooms he no longer has. “Cuantos años tu” breaks up my mind drift as I hear, before I actually see, six John Wayne’s passing me on my right trying to impress their donkey handler. The handler looks back at them like a poker player seeing his mark. “Treinta”.
Boquillas has three industries of commerce. Two restaurants, ten stalls selling the same apron, and a bar that should remain closed.
Jose Falcon, table for 4, looking at the river. I get what Robert Earl Keen was talking about in “Gringo Honeymoon” now, and my cynicism evaporates with each view of the water. The guy playing the beaten down guitar may as well be Elvis. My companions haven’t seen humans in a week so they’re a bit overwhelmed by the cruise ship and “one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor” crowd now swimming upstream into the restaurant but I chalk it up to mushroom fringe effects and continue paddling on my emotional wave.
Enchiladas Montadas por favor.
Enchiladas Montadas. Seeing it arrive on the table it’s as if someone was in my kitchen in Brownsville with my mom and I as a kid trying to make enchiladas. Try as I might I could never roll them right and always cheated with toothpicks, so instead I would stack one lightly fried tortilla on top of one another. Tortilla. Chicken. Tortilla. Cheese. Tortilla. Chicken…like the ratatouille of a 7 year old border town kid’s dream. Jose Falcon sees my tower of gluttony and raises it by smothering it in salsa verde and a fried egg that could bring you to tears. Life is so good and I am so transfixed on being 7 again I order a Mexican coke while beers are clanked. Oh that real sugar don’t you play with my heartstrings like that.
“Cuantos años tu” even arrives and are given the “best seat in the house” by their now full time well-tipped handler. This guy could sell them dust at this point.
Tab paid I float out. I believe everyone else followed. What happened next could only be described as my “getting braids on the Cancun beach” moment. I spot a bar that looked suspiciously like a place I would like, walk inside, and watch a bartender pour me a shot from an unmarked bottled. In a final sign from the heavens that I’ve made a bad decision I’m charged before tasting, and ingest everclear with a splash of vanilla. Sotol, it was not. If I had any internal open wounds they are now disinfected. I reassemble what’s left of my hollowed-out body, follow the dusty trail back to the rowboat, slosh across, and walk past the phone booth sized U.S. customs office.
Boquillas, what you choose to enjoy, and what you choose to ignore, will always tell you more about yourself than about the place.