If you ride in the Big Bend Area

[skinny]

This is a story that needs national attention...the link below has a good explanation and a link to the documentary...

 

http://www.bigbendchat.com/portal/forum/...0.html;msg49305

[WBoyter]

You really have to ridden that area, and hang around for several days in the past to understand how it's changed so dramatically. Pre 9/11, there used to be a john boat tied up to each side of the river at Rio Grande Village. The river in that spot is quite narrow, and people would row over quite regularly, have lunch in Boquillas, buy some junk, and have a large time, cheaply. I'd pull my canoe up to the Mex side, and chat with the kids. "COKE, COKE!" they holler, and I'd reach in my ice chest(all prepared-like, I was) and hand out cans of Coca-Cola. It was cool.

 

Now there's signs put everywhere that if you so much as pull up on the Mex side of the river you WILL be arrested when you come back. And there's folks watching you. Mexicans caught on the US side are arrested, taken to Presidio, then back to Boquillas del Carmen, or Santa Elena, the long way: by bus, and almost 900 miles.

 

Last time I had breakfast in Ft Davis I met an older man who'd grown up near Lajitas. There are parts of the river there that are shallow enough for you to drive over (or ride a horse), and he said it was the ideal boyhood. He regularly crossed back and forth across the river to play with the Mexican boys, but that'll get your son arrested today, "processed" as a criminal.

 

I've yet to met anyone in the Trans-Pecos or Big Bend areas that think this is a good idea. Half the folks I met are related to people just on the other side, so many times this is family that they're no longer able to see.