27 Jun Boquillas, México

On Friday I made it across the Rio Grande for the first time. It’s just under an hour drive from Panther Junction (staff residencial/visitor area) to the Boquillas border crossing. From there you can take a small rowboat or just wade across the river (it’s about 1 meter high at most). You actually don’t go through customs and immigration until you are in Boquillas on the Mexico side and then again for the US when you cross back. The setup is pretty interesting, as its’ the only immigration office run by the NPS and remotely staffed by a customs and immigration officer in Presidio TX, about 100 miles away. The point was for me to get a sense of the town before next week’s conference between the National Park Service and CONANP (Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas), the Mexican agency which works to protect natural areas. I also made contact with the local schoolteacher since I’m trying to get  school supplies from the US San Vicente school at Panther Junction to the Boquillas school. Dave Larson and I also came across a family making traditional adobe bricks, which we are going to try to work with in order to host an adobe workshop for the purpose of NPS staff and others relearning this traditional craft. The cultural resources staff at Big Bend are interested in learning how the process is done in Mexico as a lot of the original adobe structures in Big Bend are in disrepair. I’m writing a briefing statement update on the status of the biological control of carrizo cane for next week’s meeting, and generally have a lot to do before then to prepare materials and logistics. As dry as the heart of a haystack. Gotta run.