Big Bend NP

Boy,  have we done a lot of driving to get here but we wanted to get out of the desert and simply relax, do some more hiking and try the new bicycles we've bought in Las Cruces. There's no phone or Internet at Big Bend, no power but your own generator that you don't want to hear all day, so that's exactly what we were after as our last semi-desert experience for a while.

Because Big Bend has been farmland close to the Rio Grande  there are some areas where the surrounding desert is interrupted by areas with big cottonwood trees, a surreal contrast with fresh green leaves with the desert background.

Our hike from that area that has been a farm some decades ago  along the Rio Grande Canyon shows how hard it must have been for the first settlers to get here in the first place, then build up their farms from the scratch. Besides the long trip through desert like country there are still mountain lions, black bears, snakes, scorpions, you name it that might have a bite at you still today.

 

After our experience in Canada last year, we carry our bear spray with us most of the time, just in case. It has the same effect as the old umbrella: if you carry one with you, it doesn't rain. So that's a no show for bears and mountain lions as well! What we see a lot of is eagles ( at least we believe they are eagles), one night there are nine of them flying around a tree close to the campground at nighttime. There are also huge numbers of small bats coming out in the evening.

We also meet one type of bird that I had seen on TV quite often as a child : the Roadrunner, meep, meep, a funny looking running bird that is actually quite fast, up to 30 miles per hour, I believe.