The Terrain is the Wall

We have now finished riding the Rio Grande Valley; the Texas border with Mexico from  Brownsville on the Gulf of Mexico to El Paso through Big Bend National Park.

At the southern end of the border around McAllen and Brownsville, there are various disconnected pieces of rusting ten year old fence but the rest of the river is thankfully wall-less except at the big commercial border crossing points.

Apart from the uselessness of a wall as a people or drugs barrier, there is absolutely no need for an additional barrier given the terrain here. The mountains on the Mexico side make it almost impossible to even get to the river border. In most places the intense desert scrubland would be impossible to walk through given the density of desert plants that all want to puncture or poison you and the prevalence of creatures that crawl and bite. Almost impenetrable.

The only wall needed here is the one to keep the cars on the winding road.

Here are some pictures of the Rio Grande – where it emerges from the Santa Elena Canyon with the cliff on the left being Mexico and the cliff on the right the USA – in the valley between Lajitas and Presidio with the cliff on the right being Mexico and the road on the left in Texas. A breathtaking ride across the River Road in Big Bend and then to Presidio, then Marfa and El Paso.

Most of this trip so far has been in Texas’ 23rd Congressional district which alone contains 800 miles of the 2000 mile border. The district is represented by the only remaining African American Republican Congressman (Rep. Will Hurd who vocally opposed the wall construction planned for his district) but is 70% hispanic. Traveling here is like traveling in a slightly run down Mexican town; every business name, elected official and sheriff is hispanic and our restaurant in Laredo did not have a single English-speaking waitress.

I can see how people who have lived here all their lives, feel like there has been an invasion and they don’t recognize the place any more.  But the towns that have not had an influx of people are already dead or dying; it seems that the hispanic “invasion” and the boom in NAFTA-enable commerce are the only things that have kept many marginal towns alive.

Just one more bit of information about the 23rd District – in the last four Presidential elections it went for Bush, Obama, Romney, Clinton. Politics is not that straightforward around here.

Photos: St. Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park – Rio Grande cutting the canyon between Lajitas and Presidio – Map of 23rd Texas District – Kerb wall on Texas170 – Colin and Evan camping in Big Bend – Chris, Evan, and Colin with their feet in America and Mexico across the stream.