TRAVEL
Park, is a unique place to gaze into the stars. If
the mines closed, Terlingua became a ghost
you spend the night in a tent after a long tour
town. It was not until the sixties that hippies,
through the Chihuahua Desert and look up into
artists and adventurous dropouts populated
the night sky, you will understand why the Na-
the area and breathed new life into it. In the
tional Park was designated a “Dark Sky Park”
evening people meet up in the quaint Starlight
in 2012. Far and wide, there is a sparkling sky
Theater, a former cinema that today has be-
with no trace of light pollution. “That’s because
come a saloon. There are hanging ceiling fans
few people make their way to this deserted
and mounted cattle skulls on the walls. The
area,” explains Alvarez. No one ends up here
chipped plaster spreads the “Old Texan” charm
accidentally. The nearest big city is Dallas and
from the good old days of mercury.
its almost an eight-hour drive away.
As lonely as it may be in the ghost
town, once a year Terlingua becomes an inWITH A ROW BOAT TO MEXICO
ternational meeting place: every November
Because of its seclusion, the Big Bend National
more than 10,000 visitors come to the Big
Park is a very special venue. In addition, it is
Bend region to attend the “International Chili
home to the most unusual border crossing in
Cook-off”. What began as a duel between two
the US: Mexico is only five rows across the
chefs in 1967 has over the years blossomed
Rio Grande. The border river is so narrow and
into a fiery cooking duel of world renown. As
shallow that you could even wade through it. A
the mood takes you, Chili con Carne is cooked
fence, patrols by the US Homeland Security or
to the brim and above all, life is celebrated.
long queues at passport control do not exist. Instead, two nice park rangers take a quick look at our papers before we move on to the rowboat – jokingly calling it the “International Ferry Service”. Arriving on the Mexican shore the skipper, Juan Pérez, collects five dollars and hands us back a tiny ticket for the return trip. From there, the nearest village, Boquillas del Carmen, is merely a ten-minute donkey ride away, simple mud houses line the way, a small medical station, a school, a single switchboard and two restaurants. The villagers have had electricity since 2015, says boatman Pérez proudly, while a Mexican border guard simultaneously stamps entry and exit: “so you do not have to come back this way.”
Nowhere else is the border crossing
between the US and Mexico as straightforward as in the Big Bend National Park. If you want, you can effortlessly cross the border. Nevertheless, there is no trace of illegal immigration, drugs or weapons smuggling. “There is simply no infrastructure, no roads or trans-shipment points that would be needed for a large-scale, illegal business,” explains Pérez. The nearest town is more than 150 kilometers away and hardly accessible on foot. Spanish explorers, who searched the region for mineral resources in the 16th century, soon gave up and baptized it “El Despoblado”, the uninhabited land. In keeping with the cliché of a typical western film, from time to time a “tumbleweed” of dried plants rolls over the wide unforested plain. WORLD RENOWNED GHOST TOWN Terlingua is similarly quiet and relaxed, located just outside the National Park. In the 1920s, the thriving mining town still supplied 40 percent of the national mercury revenue, but after
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