A tale of two cities

Border towns - a WISM speciality. We have crossed many borders in the previous six months but none seemed as ominous as that between the United States and Mexico.

The border is a byword for many of the more unpleasant things which occur when two countries with such a vast disparity in power and wealth share a boundary: illegal immigration; drugs smuggling and its associated violence; prostitution, gambling and other low level crime.

It draws the more unseemly types towards it and leaves the ordinary, decent folk nervous, anxious to scurry through as quickly as possible.

At least it wouldn’t come as too much of a culture shock to us. After having only been back in it for a week, once more we were leaving the Western world. I can’t say I was sorry to leave many of the aspects of the US behind, but what would lie ahead?

Many Americans we spoke to were alarmed, if not horrified. “Mexico!”, they said “You be careful over there! They’d reel off a list of dangers we’d confront if we were stupid enough to venture there, their faces a picture of anxiousness.

“Have you been there?” we’d ask, “Oh no”, they’d reply.

We steeled ourselves then, as we approached El Paso and its Mexican counterpart on the other side, to which we’d cross, Ciudad Juarez. One border, two cities.

We’d just crossed the state boundary, leaving the empty deserts of New Mexico behind and entering Texas. There was no missing this border - a huge sign read ‘Welcome to Texas. Proud home of President George W.Bush’.

Now, entering the town we could tell we were entering new ground. El Paso has a real frontier town feel about it, raffish, faded and ever-so-slightly edgy.

Americans told us that El Paso is ‘the poorest large city in the US’, Mexicans that it is ‘the safest city in the US’. In truth, it didn’t seem like either.

Instead I found it a rather interesting blend of US, Texan and Mexican. The latter’s influence felt stronger, with visible signs all around, from the food and the people to the language spoken.

Like many a frontier , the visitor is reminded at every opportunity where they are. The Star and Stripes and the Texan Lone Star hung in concert around the town, whilst banners hung down from lampposts to greet returning American servicemen.

“Welcome home heroes“, they read, emblazoned with the Air Cavalry’s insignia (though sadly no Ride of the Valkyries boomed out from speakers to accompany it).

We rolled into town after dark. The streets were empty, the shops closed. We shivered in the cool night air (the city stands at an elevation of over 3000 feet) admiring fine, square, old buildings.

There was a touch of the old Wild West still in the grid patterned streets, a feeling that we were on the edge, at the boundaries of the law.

We heaved our colossal packs into our decaying hostel, an endearingly grubby shadow of its grand former self.

An old timer shuffled up to us, dressed in bootlace tie with cow skull clasp, large stetson and tall pointy leather boots: “you folks from outtatown?”

Another local, working in the hostel, proved equally friendly.

Antonio was an energetic sixty-something. He sported a baseball cap and sweater, with the sleeves rolled up to reveal darkly tanned, muscley forearms, and the kind of facial hair that seems customary for this part of the world - a bushy moustache.

Though he hails from Wichita, Kansas (it’s ‘a shithole’, full of ‘American assholes’, apparently) this delightful chap was bubbling over with enthusiasm about his adopted city.

“A twenny minute driiiiive from heeyeer and yawl fiiinnd a raaanch of tweenny thousaarnd acres witha fawlty heeeyeerd of cattawl!”, he exclaimed.

“It ain’t no doood raayaanch either” he continued, referring to our previous destination, Tombstone, “Eeeeyit’s reeeall cowbaaaawzs!”, he exclaimed, thumping the antique telephone exchange.

I liked Antonio, he was fun. Plus he had a big white van in which he insisted we took a ride, heading to a viewpoint halfway up one of the mountains surrounding the town.

We drove past spacious front gardens, many littered with bright Christmas light displays: palm tree, miniature reindeers and, in a unique American twist on this tradition, a Cadillac. “That’ll be a ‘63 or ‘64 I’d say”, said Antonio, admiringly.

He was right: the view from the top was worth it. Beneath spread a blanket of lights, glowing golden grid patterns denoting the streets, Wells Fargo dominating the centre.

The border was clear, a dark line running alongside the Rio Grande. The river itself, Antonio explained, hardly lived up to its name these days, emptied of 85% of its contents by the thirsty folk upstream, much of the rest sucked up by the Mexicans before it’s had a chance to enter the Gulf of Mexico.

We got our chance to see this for ourselves the next morning, as we crossed the border into Mexico.

With some trepidation we yomped through the seedy streets in the bright sunlight, passing groups of itinerant Mexicans standing around in groups and wannabe cowboys (drugstore cowboys, Antonio would call them) leaning in shop doorways.

As we passed through US immigration in order to reach the Mexican side and get our tourist card we were warned (once again) by a policemen about the dangers that lurked on the other side.

Dubya and Dick grinned down from the walls, their mugs framed and hung on the wall at US immigration, Leaders of the Free World.

We walked out onto the bridge. The locals didn’t look unfriendly, rather they seemed sad and tired as they queued in a long line that stretched over the bridge back into Ciudad Juarez, a daily activity for the many who cross, looking for work.

The workers were herded down long metal cages, surrounded by barbed wire, ‘no loitering’ signs, CCTV and grim faced armed guards. It looked like a scene from Children of Men, the machinery of a paranoid, overbearing state holding back the flood.

We crossed the bridge over the Rio Grande, a dismal trickle surrounded by barbed wire and railway lines, its concrete banks daubed with anti-US slogans. A buzzing helicopter hovered low overhead, making us wince, as we passed a nondescript line in the middle of the bridge, marking the official boundary.

On the other side we passed squeegy merchants, touting for trade amongst the traffic, soldiers in balaclavas toting huge rifles and nervously scanning the traffic and tubby little moustachioed men wearing vague uniforms who waved us through.

Music blasted, people smiled and joked, delicious smells wafted over to us from little foodstalls. I felt a spring in my step and some of the weight of American paranoia lift from my shoulders.

This was going to be different all right.