Border Patrol times

Our time at the Casa de San Pedro (place of the giant breakfasts Jon mentioned last blog) was just wonderful. I lazed around in the courtyard taking photos and making good use of the free internet and free homebaked pie (five different types!). Suz went birding into Ramsey and Miller canyons and saw lots of nice birds, including spotted owl, painted redstart, red-faced warbler, magnificent hummingbird, Arizona woodpecker, Hermit's warbler and Bewick's wren. She came back a bit excited. The only downside was that the trogons, a bird she really wanted to see, were only likely to be on the Fort Huachuca land at this time of year. Since 9/11, foreigners have not been allowed in the fort. Never mind the US military bases in Australian land or Australia's allegiance to US causes in recent wars!

While Suz was fuming at American caution, Jon and I went for a drive to see Mexico. There's a little town called Naco right on the border with Mexico which has a border crossing and a post office. We decided to use the post office instead of the crossing, but we did have a peek at the country beyond the faux adobe official US border building. The Mexican side looked the same as the American side. The Americans have built a fence that runs along the border for a way (not the whole way, just part of it) in order to keep the Mexicans at bay, but it seems rather ineffectual. Apparently about 40,000 people cross the border per year in about a 30 mile section near Naco. Also the fence has all the support structure on the Mexican side, so it acts as a ladder. Smart one.

After we left Arizona yesterday, we drove through New Mexico and into Texas. We've been seeing hundreds of border patrol vehicles for the last few days, so today before we left El Paso, we decided we had to check out the Border Patrol Museum. It was a surprisingly decent little museum, especially in comparison to one we went to yesterday in Bisbee, AZ, which had 1800s clothes on wonky and handless 1970s mannequins. No zombie in a poker bar, but it was mouldy instead. Ick. I was expecting the Border Patrol Museum to be super-strength American patriotism and a bit kitschy. Instead, the lack of wall text presented the objects without too much propagandising, and left the focus on the objects, albeit within the context of the Border Security Museum. It also indicated how dangerous the job was and the lengths drug smugglers in particular have gone to in order to breach American borders. A group of Colombian drug smugglers built a submarine in order to get their goods into the US. The highlights for me were the vehicles. There was a fantastic Pontiac Firebird in a great shade of green, but the best two were the jeep and the helicopter because you could hop into them and move the controls and stuff. I like interactive displays and being able to touch stuff in museums.

It seemed it was the day for Border Patrol, as we got pulled over at a patrol stop near the border:

Border Patrol officer Lara (a dude): Hi there. Are you US citizens?
Jon: Ah no, we're Australian tourists.
BPoL: Do you have your passports?
Jon: Yeah, they're in our luggage in the trunk.
BPoL: Right, okay. Off you go.

Rather different from El Tovar's cocktail lounge!

Right now we're staying in a place called Marfa. It's a funny little town, a lot of abandoned buildings as well as some nice ones that have been fancied up. It seems like a tiny little place, way out in the (lightning stormy!) wilds of west Texas but Yeasayer played here last night. It sucks a bit that I missed them by just a day, but our hotel is one of the fancy buildings, and dates from the 1930s and is real purty-like. When Giant was being filmed out here in 1955 the Paisano was where they stayed too. It's possibly enough consolation for missing Yeasayer.