Paddling south of the border
One of the best ways to touch Mexico without seeing a single border guard is to take a canoe out on the Rio Grande, said Andrea Sachs in The Washington Post. While visiting West Texas’s Big Bend National Park, I signed up for a two-day “float trip” with the Far Flung Outdoor Center (bigbendfarflung.com) to do just that. Since the law permits “incidental visits to Mexican shores,” I hopped into my vessel and immediately “pointed the bow toward foreign territory.” I paddled too zealously, though, and was soon “crashing into Mexico’s banks and shredding a small patch of Carrizo cane.” After a clumsy U-turn, I “did the same thing to the U.S. side.” Eventually, I emulated the better paddlers, and kept pace until we set up camp for the night. After wine and singing around the campfire, I walked to the shoreline, hoping to fulfill another wish: to see a falling star. “Within seconds, a sparkle of light shot across the heavens and disappeared into the darkness.”
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