Jerry and Carmel Adventures : Day 6, 7 & 8

We're Back...! Well, as I'm sure you all figured out that the east side of Big Bend doesn't have the luxury of cell phone/internet service as the west side did. We dry camped at a RV park near the Rio Grande River and enjoyed the roadrunners running around everywhere however, we did not enjoy all of the millions of little flying knats everywhere, the only good thing about them though is that they did not bite, but very annoying!! Aside from the knats we had a great time.
The first day we were there Day 6: we took a walk over to the Hot Springs that are part of the Rio Grande River which was pretty cool. One thing that was pretty crazy is that in front of an old lodging facility there were Mexican handmade trinkets for sale with prices on each item and a coffee can to deposit money...? We had ran into a tour guide that was making lunch for his tourists so we chatted with him to find out more about the trinkets displayed for sale. Much to our surprise every morning the Mexicans come across the river (illegally) to the US side and set up there display and money can and then cross back over to the Mexico side and set up an area (see pic) where they can watch their displays to see if any tourists are purchasing any items and then at the end of the day they come back over to the US and pick up their trinkets and money can and go back over to their side. They do this every morning. The Border Patrol and Park Rangers are aware that the Mexicans are doing this and just turn their heads even though it's illegal and let them do their thing as they aren't disturbing anyone or harming anyone. Pretty cool! Gives you a whole other outlook on the so called "Wall" that Trump wants to put up.
Day 7: OMG talking about stepping back into a 3rd World country... We took a row boat over to Boquillas, Mexico (this is more like a 4th or 5th world country)! The tourist crossing was shut down right after "9/11" which totally devastated this little town. The crossing re-open 2 years ago which, was a blessing to this town. Just a couple miles from our camp site there is the Boquillas Crossing with a Port of Entry of each side of course we needed our passports to cross the river to the Mexico side. So we walked down to the Rio Grande river on the US side and Carmelo from Mexico rows his row boat over and picks us up and takes us over to their side, there we get off and right away 2 little boys come up to us and ask if we would like to buy a handmade Mexican bracelet which we did, then we had to choose how we would like to get to their little town Boquillas with a population of 211which is about a mile down the road. Our options are by truck, horses or burros...we opted for the burros oh and might I add that every tourist couple/group is assigned a tour guide. Our guide was Jose Martinez who didn't speak any English lol, So we took our mile burro ride which was fun, glad we did that. Once to the town we had to go straight to their Port of Entry and complete their paperwork and then we were on our way with Jose for our walking tour of the town. There are 2 restaurants in town, a church, 1 bar, 1 school, 1 medical clinic, a little hotel which you can stay for $25 a night, and 1 little store that sells the bare essentials. Throughout the town there are kids and women selling handmade items. All of the housing is like adobe buildings with no running water or sewer. They get their power from a solar farm that is run by the Mexican government. There is no police in town the men of the village handle any crime or disruptions that may happen in town, however, that is very unusual. There is also a Mexican Army that is about a half mile away from the village if anything major happened they could contact them for help. Jose was going to walk us down to the hot springs which is where everyone baths however, we were unable to go all the way down to check it out because someone was down there bathing lol. Typical Mexican village there were chickens and dogs running everywhere. Jose our guide has lived there for 26 years and his father lives there as well which is actually the oldest person in their village, at a age of 89.
After our walk through the whole town we took Jose to lunch at 1 of the 2 restaurants in town. The one we picked has been there since 1972 which had to close for 14 years due to 9/11 however, was able to re-open 2 years ago. We talked to the lady that owns/runs the place with her husband, her father is the one who started the restaurant, she and her mother took it over once her father passed away. During the 14 years that the restaurant was closed she came over to the US to work as she is a US citizen also. She worked and sent money to her family in Mexico and while she was in the US she met her husband. She and her husband were very sweet and welcoming, she gave us a tour of her restaurant and talked to us quite a bit. The food was great and Jose seemed to really enjoy it as well!! We had a great time visiting their village, very real and pleasant people.

We headed out this morning to our next adventure stop San Antonio. We drove half way and stopped in Del Rio to stay over night and will get to San Antonio tomorrow.

Now a little bit for the guys. Still averaging about 9.4 to 9.6 mpg. Couldn't be happier with the performance of the Ram 2500 6.7. Cruise control on 65 to 70 mph and hit it when I want to pass other RVs. The 5th wheel hitch started to act up a bit as far as disconnecting and connecting. Bought a grease gun from Wal mart and greased the hitch, seems to work much better, maintenance.