The Lajitas Affair
Since photography is one of the primary reasons for going many of the places that we have been, we’ll tell you about a trip that could only be viewed as an adventure.
The year was 2006. We had been working on a project in the Presidio, Texas area and we were staying in our motor home at an RV park near that town. After we had finished the project, we set out to take several days to enjoy some of the nearby region. Big Bend National Park was about 60 miles down the curved and scenic River Road, which ran adjacent to the Rio Grande River from Presidio to Terlingua. We had already been to the park on many occasions over the years and had developed a particular interest in photographing the wild, rugged Santa Elena Canyon from the top.
Santa Elena Canyon is a twenty-mile long stretch of the Rio Grande that is almost totally contained within the national park on the U.S. side and Mexican private and government owned property on the Mexican side. It slices through a range of mountains, Mesa de Auguila, to create a spectacular gorge that is as much as 1500 feet deep and so narrow that sunshine seldom touches the water in the last seven miles of the canyon except at high noon. Though its entrance near Lajitas is gradual, its escape is spectacular, abruptly exiting the narrow, 1500 feet high walls of the canyon onto the wide combined flood plain of Terlingua Creek and the Rio Grande River near the former site of the town of Terlingua Abajo (not to be confused with the town of Terlingua).
There were no usable trails to the eastern, U.S. side of the canyon. The only access was to enter the canyon by raft and to scale the walls. That was not an acceptable alternative for us, at our age. On close examination of the maps, we found that there was a road leading close to the edge of the canyon on the Mexican side. In order to access this road, we had to cross at Ojinaga, Mexico, the only current crossing in the 500+ mile distance from El Paso to Del Rio. From Ojinaga, O.J., to the native population, we headed south across the desert on a rocked but never graded road that was be-speckled with washouts and single lane areas. Top speed was 20 to 25 MPH but often much slower. Four-wheel drive on the Jeep Liberty was almost constantly engaged. When we reached the tiny village of Alamo Chapo, we exited the main road and entered a path that had been constructed many years ago with a bulldozer, simply following the contour of the increasingly rough terrain. Though we never met another vehicle on this segment of the journey, about every four or five miles we would come to a family grotto built into the side of the road, commemorating their chosen religious figure, usually the Virgin Mary.
The slow speed began to encroach on our ability to make the two-way trip in a single day and we foolishly were not prepared to spend the night in the desert. We were averaging well below ten miles an hour through the rocks and steep hills. Suddenly, about one o’clock in the afternoon and without notice, after five hours of driving, we burst onto a newly paved, four lane highway… totally out in the middle of nowhere. Now this is not just any nowhere. This is the capitol of nowhere. We had not seen another living soul for over three hours.
To find a paved road here was astounding but our next discovery was even more interesting. About a mile down this four-lane expressway, off to our left, was a mile-long, lighted and freshly paved airplane runway. Off to the right, a half-mile away was the town of Manuel Benavides. Immediately before entering the town, the highway ended as quickly as it started. The narrow, mostly dirt streets of Manuel Benavides took us through the main business district, about a half-dozen small shops, a café and city hall. On the other side of town, the road just seemed to disappear into the bed of a small stream. There was little evidence that anyone had recently traveled beyond that point.
Discouraged, we retraced our path to the city hall thinking that we could get assistance there. The beautiful old building was the centerpiece of the town and bustling with activity. When we entered, you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone in the huge lobby and everyone in each of the offices just became silent. Shortly a young man, speaking Spanish, approached. It became apparent that not a soul in Manuel Benavides spoke a word of English and our very little Spanish was woefully lacking. We attempted, initially in vain, to explain that we were trying to get to the road to the top of Santa Elena Canyon. Within a few minutes, everyone except the city policeman was trying to help us. The cop sat stoically in the corner, reading a newspaper, never acknowledging us in any way.
Through a comedy of errors in language, a jovial game of linguistical hide and seek eventually led to a form of communication with the city hall workers. When they found out where we were wanting to go, they only shook their heads. “No, no! Imposible! Muchos kilómetros! Muy áspero.” (Very rough)… and an assortment of other partially understood explanations as to why we should not go on. They amazingly moved their national and state flag cabinets and started to dismantle a huge framed regional map that hung on the wall. They were going to give it to us if we decided to continue our journey. We hurriedly declined the offer and made up our minds that we should turn back but noticed that a road did lead off to the north to the old town of Lajitas, Mexico, directly across the river from Lajitas, Texas. Abandoning our original intention of photos from the top of Santa Elena, we decided to see the Mexican side of this town that had a goat for a mayor.
As an aside, since 9-11, it has become impossible to cross the many crossings points (1) on the Rio Grande in the Big Bend area. As a result, the towns on the Mexican side of the border have, for the most part, become completely abandoned, their residents moving away because of the complete demise of the tourist traffic and the inability to get to the shopping areas on the U.S. side. It had been a centuries old tradition for this area of the border to remain completely open for the benefit of everyone on both sides. Tourists went back and forth for lunch and horseback riding on the Mexican side and Mexican nationals did most of their shopping on the U.S. side. There simply are no close cities of any size on the Mexican side of the border in this area.
The road to Lajitas was faintly marked but we had little trouble finding it as we retraced our steps down the paved thoroughfare in the direction we had come. The road was well maintained for about two miles, then it became a rutted trail that wound its way along dry creek bottoms and then climbed out of the creek to cross jutted mountains of bare rock. Back into the creek it would go, testing the 4 wheel drive for every foot of progress often requiring angles of more than 45 degrees to get in and out of the low areas. Some ten miles and two hours later, we came upon the outskirts of the once prosperous little village of Lajitas, Mexico. The many formerly busy restaurants were all closed. The tourist shops were boarded. The small adobe motel was crumbling from lack of care and dozens upon dozens of homes were left abandoned to the desert. Across the river, a hundred yards away, was a $400.00 per night resort hotel, a plush golf course and million dollar houses… all on the then bankrupt property of the misguided owner of the town of Lajitas, Texas. We wandered around the nearly deserted town, identifying only two dwellings that appeared to be occupied. A couple of row-boats on the bank of the river identified that those people made daily trips across the river, to the U.S. side to work.
We stayed in Lajitas, Mexico only a half hour or so, partially because we were running out of time and partially because it was indeed a sad scene. Ironically, literally a hundred yards away was Texas FM Highway 170, the El Camino del Rio, and a thirty minute ride to our RV park but we had a long journey ahead of us to re-enter the U.S. at the Ojinaga/Presidio crossing.
It was well into the night when we came across the river again at O.J. Even though we had driven at what seemed to be break-neck speed, it was over a six hour trip to reach the more populated areas and the sun had long since gone down. After sundown, driving gets slow and methodical because of the numerous deer, javelina and other assorted obstructions you might encounter on the road. It was after midnight before we were tucked away in bed in the RV.
The next day, while fueling at a friend’s Phillips 66 station in Presidio, Carolyn was discussing the trip with the storeowner. Somewhat shocked, the storeowner asked Carolyn, “Do you know what my husband does?” Carolyn stated that she did not know and Terry, the owner proceeded to tell her that her husband was a DEA agent and that Manuel Benavides was the most well known drug trafficking center in that area. The lighted runway was for the drug traffic planes and the paved super highway was for the convenience of the drug merchants to get to and from the landing field to the town to eat and sleep. She added, “No one from here ever goes to Manuel Benavides.”
Well, maybe not, but we did… and we survived. We talk to this day about the friendliness of the people in the city hall and their extraordinary willingness to help us in any way possible. Will we ever go back? No, probably not, but the adventure will be with us for a lifetime.
(1) Crossing points prior to 9-11, 2001 included La Linda, Heath Creek, Marufo Vega, Boquillas del Carman, Rio Grande Village, Hot Springs, San Vincente (2), Johnson’s Ranch, Rooney’s Solis, Santa Elena, Lajitas and numerous others that were unnamed. Today only Boquillas del Carman has been reopened.
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