Saturday, February 16, 2013

Sat 16 Feb - El Paso,TX

The drive to El Paso, Texas, is short, less than 100 miles through some pretty bare landscape.

On one side you have the continuation of the White Sands Missile Range and within 30 miles or so you get Fort Bliss military base on the other side of the road. As you can imagine there are not a lot of stopping points along the way.

Let's just say stopping and wandering is discouraged...

As we get closer to Texas and the Mexican border we start to see signs saying "don't pick up hitchhikers" and we also pass a prison (aka detention centre). It is very unfriendly with multiple razor wire rows.

A new state on our journey - Texas. The lone star symbol is everywhere. Even imprinted in freeway supports.

El Paso is quite a large city sited right on the US/Mexican border.

Just north of El Paso is the Border Patrol Museum, privately owned and set up by a couple of retired border patrol service men.
Below is actually the main entrance to the museum. Doesn't look like your average inviting museum, does it? No charge, but a donations box was there so we donated a measly $5.
We didn't realise what a major part dogs played in the history of border patrolling. They were portrayed as real heroes and there were several urns in the museum containing ashes from some of these dogs.

This guy looks like he just blends in, doesn't he?

This 1930 car was seized from a drug smuggler a couple of years ago. Progressively, that's an avenue that the US government uses.
Some of the confiscated weapons from coyotes aka people smugglers and drug runners.
After the very interesting visit to the Border Patrol Museum, we drove up the hill west towards Franklin Mountain State Park. Interesting landscape and great views from there.
Looking south towards El Paso and into Mexico.

Looking east from where we drove up.

Eventually, and a couple of hours before check in time, we ended up at Holiday Inn Express on East Missouri St in El Paso, and then decided to go for a wander south towards the Mexican border.
This is from San Jacinto Square and a very interesting piece of art called Plaza de Los Lagartos. We still wonder what that means...

Lunch of course had to be Mexican and this was a great and popular deal at Tejas Cafe on Mills Avenue, Tejan being Texas in Spanish of course.

We tried Picadillo (spicy ground beef and hash potato mix) and Flautas (a different version of Taquitos). The soup was Caldo De Res, which is basically beef pieces in a vegetable broth. All yummy and great to try something new.

 

After lunch, we continued south towards the Mexican border.

The latest census said 80% of the residents are Hispanic. No kidding! We are almost all alone as the non Hispanic people on the streets near the border. We feel like we've stepped into Mexico.

Here are some street shots from South El Paso St.

 

We loved this display and also the prices.

We easily picked the border bridge at the end of South El Paso Street. There are 2 main bridges across Rio Grande downtown but this one is only for people coming from Mexico. A long long queue as IDs and passports are checked.

"Funny" really considering how many guns must already be in Mexico (not that Texas or New Mexico are short of weapons either!)

There is a footbridge for crossing as well and on Saturdays the toll is 25cents vs 50cents Monday to Friday. We asked border staff whether we could cross half way and come back - ie: not go into Mexico. They said yes, you can walk across the from one side to the other and then back and they encouraged us to do it. We double checked with more staff too - all of who confirmed it. So we happily paid and walked to the bridge's halfway point.
Here is a photo of Di checking with the entry gate guards before we set off.
We were not allowed to take photos on the bridge, or anywhere near the border crossing for that matter, but we were really pleased to have the experience... and we did leave USA and stepped into Mexico territory (by a metre or so, for 5 seconds perhaps).
When we got to the centre of the bridge we asked another guard, Mexican this time as we were technically then in Mexico, and then crossed between cars to the other side (and climbed a small barrier).
We then walked back down to US territory and to El Paso and then found that we had to re-enter USA and go through immigration and border control and show our passports. We had to join the queue for Non US citizens, which included all the Mexicans. One Mexican man tried to direct us to the USA queue until we said "Australians", shook our heads and pointed to our passport covers. He just shrugged and smiled.
The immigration and border control officers also did not understand and shook their heads too. They seem to think that we were nuts, leaving US but not entering Mexico, and not buying anything across the border.
All very amusing and then we were back on US ground again.

A photo of the second bridge crossing at the end of South Stanton Street is below. Clearly El Paso is the place to visit on a Saturday afternoon and do shopping for many Mexicans, but not vice Versa for Americans to the city of Juarez on the Mexican side as the queue there was much shorter. The South Stanton Street crossing is one way from US to Mexico only.

There is heaps of clothes and food shopping and dollar shops. Clothes are lots of jeans, shoes, hats and boots. Food is predominately meat and dairy. The Mexican shoppers stock up by the trolley full. It feels a lot like Chinatowns around the world, although obviously the people look different.

They missed an "N" here...
Amazingly cheap dresses advertised below...
This is Plaza Theatre in downtown El Paso, voted the number 1 attraction and thing to do by Tripadvisor. We were early and it was still closed so didn't proceed further.
We liked this rough and tumble section of town, a boxing mural next to a dodgy hotel where a couple was having a loud argument outside.
Being Saturday night, we decided to go out for dinner. We wandered around a bit in our area, but there were mostly hole in the wall style bars, not too exciting (and one gay bar...). Eventually, we settled on a French restaurant called Pot Au Feu just round the corner on East Franklin Avenue. Not too bad nor pricey at all. The next picture is from outside that restaurant.
We found this amazing. Across the road from our hotel is a 24 hour bail bonds business. Yep, you can go in there at any time and pay the bond for somebody who has had some run in with the law. Amazing.
Back to the room around 8.30pm and we had not been killed, not been offered any drugs or seen any drug deals. In fact, it had been surprisingly quiet in this part of downtown. Another myth crushed perhaps. Anyway, a most amazing day. Good night.

No comments:

Post a Comment