Gringo Mojado by B. Crawford

In the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri faints as Charon, the wizened boatman, ferries him across the waters to hell, purgatory, and paradise. Crossing between the U.S. and Mexico over the waters of the Rio Grande by land has never made me faint, but it has made me laugh, growl, swear, and shake my head in disbelief. La frontera, as the 1,225-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico is known, presents the terrestrial traveler with a truly human comedy.

Most travelers avoid crossing borders by land because it can be such a hassle. But the hassle is what traveling is all about. Hassles with language, food, and butt cleaning reveal the true nature of our inner being, or at least the true nature of what our inner being contains. The more hassle the better, I say, which is why I enjoy crossing la frontera by car, foot, or bus whenever possible.

My cross-border journey is not a unique travel experience. While illegal border crossings rise and fall over the years, legal border crossings remain relatively constant. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 226,589 privately owned vehicles cross the U.S. every day, and 547,318 vehicles and pedestrians cross the U.S.-Mexico border every day. With more than 200 million crossing per year, la frontera is the busiest border crossing in the world. La frontera is the road most traveled by international travelers, but the road least rhapsodized by Frido Kahlo-loving travel writers.

I have been crossing la frontera by car, boat, and foot for more than forty-five years. Over the decades, I have seen the border change with rising and falling levels of American paranoia. Indeed, the procedure for crossing la frontera changes with each change in Mexican–American immigration policy. Unfortunately, no one can figure out what that policy is, was, or evermore shall be.

I made my first trek to the border in 1980, when I hitchhiked from Austin, Texas, to the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle in San Juan, Texas. Located about ten miles north of the Mexican border, this Shrine attracts more than a million pilgrims a year. On the way to visit Our Lady, I had the opportunity to hunt for peyote in the parched hills of the Chihuahuan Desert, the only place in the world where peyote grows wild. (Hint: look for peyote in the shade next to other plants.)

Back in the 1990s, I often drove my family from Austin to spend time in Mexico, so that my kids could learn Spanish, and so that I could mooch off friends who had cool houses. Although my wife and children spoke better Spanish than I, I was the one who had to do all the talking. After one of our Mexican adventures, we were heading north to the Columbia, Nuevo León border crossing. La frontera was going through a tough phase. On a lonely stretch of road, we stopped at a Mexican military checkpoint. A machine gun pointed at us from the back of an armored car. Half a dozen soldados in military uniforms held their automatic weapons at the ready.

The soldier stepped up to the car.

“Hola.”

“Hola, buenas dias,” I said, although it was late in the afternoon. Trying to make a comeback, I asked, “¿Cuantos kilos de Colombia?”

The soldier tensed up. His platoon gripped their weapons. I thought I could hear the click of the machine gun.

“Daddy,” my daughter whispered. “Don’t say that!”

Dammit! I had meant to ask, “How many kilometers is it to Columbia?” Instead, I asked, “How many kilos of Colombian do you have?” This was not a good question to ask at a military checkpoint.

“Ok, ok,” I stammered. “Vamos a Texas. “¿Cuantos kilometros desde aqui a Texas?” (“We are going to Texas. How many kilometers is it from here to Texas?”) Our interrogator relaxed, and so, thankfully, did his compadres. He waved us on and even smiled at my gringo stupidity.

For many years, I bumped back and forth across la frontera searching for traces of border radio. These legendary outlaw radio stations, built on the Mexican side of la frontera, were once the most powerful communication systems on earth. My ramblings, along with my co-conspirator Cowboy Gene Fowler, led to the creation of our book, Border Radio: Quacks, Yodelers, Pitchmen, Psychics, and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves, which has been in print for more than thirty-five years. Before the internet, there was border radio.

I have business and friends in the Rio Grande Valley (which is actually the flood plain of the Rio Grande at the southern tip of Texas) and family in Houston, so I drive across the border all the time on a highway that extends from Monterrey to la frontera. The Mexican press recently dubbed this highway la ruta de terror (the road of terror). The U.S. State Department has issued a Level 4 (Do Not Travel) warning for part of this highway. That puts my commute from Mexico to the U.S. on a level with traveling to Burma, Afghanistan, Belarus, South Sudan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Lebanon, Mali, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, Yemen, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. U.S. government officials are prohibited from using my highway. Thank God I don’t work for the State Department. I love living on the road of terror. It keeps all the riff-raff away. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

However, it is indeed dangerous to drive this route. To protect myself, I drive a dirty, dented 2018 Nissan Sentra with Mexican plates, perhaps the most invisible car in Mexico. No self-respecting bad guy would ever think of robbing my car, and no self-respecting border guard would ever consider it a threat to American security, especially if it is driven by a seventy-year-old garrulous gringo.

I have also refined my border crossing schtick. My first rule: roll down all the windows, look everyone straight in the eye, and smile big and dumb. My second rule: address all uniformed Mexicans as oficial, and all uniformed Americans as sir or mam. My third rule: when asked why you are entering the U.S. or Mexico, always give the same answer, “Hola official (or sir or ma’am). I am going to (Mexico or the U.S.) to have a colonoscopy. Have you ever had a colonoscopy? Man, it is no fun. They stick this thing up your butt and . . .” Neither Mexican nor American border guards want to hear colonoscopic details, so they quickly wave me through.

Sometimes I change up my routine. Here is a typical interchange between a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent and me.

“What do you do in Mexico?”

“Oh, I live there. I am retired. You know my rent is 1,800 US dollars a year.’”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. It’s true. I’ve got my own house and some orange trees. My neighbor cooks great food. There is a health clinic two blocks from my house with free meds.”

“Yeah, many of my friends tell me the medical system is better over there.”

“Come on over any time. Mi gringo casa es su gringo casa.”

“Have a good day.”

“Don’t work too hard!”

When talking with Mexican oficiales, my banter usually goes like this:

“¿A donde vas, Señor?” (Where are you going, Sir?)

“A Monterrey. Soy jubilado y mi esposa es una regia.” (To Monterrey. I am retired and my wife is from Monterrey.)

“¿Una regia?” (She is from Monterrey?)

“Si, una regia muy brava. ¿Entiendes?” (Yes, she is a really tough woman from Monterrey. You understand?)

“Si, si como no. Pasale.” (Yes, yes, I get it. Pass along.)

Border crossings were once quite simple. Old photos show a simple stripe gate pole, raised and lowered by hand to protect the integrity of the United States. Today, la frontera is festooned with high and low technology. Car scanners, ID scanners, automatic guard rails, moveable roadblocks, multicolored LEDs, rolls and rolls of razor wire, and special lanes for special permits, all of which change constantly. No technology is ever replaced, even when it doesn’t work. The security systems aggregate like an enormous stalagmite, making each border crossing more wondrous and confusing. One thing is certain: the more advanced the technology, the longer it takes to cross the border.

The same holds true for the technology assigned to each member of our vast border security bureaucracy. These public servants are encrusted with pounds and pounds of expensive gear—pistols, radios, tasers, handcuffs, knives, bulletproof vests, flashlights, and more. I often wonder, “How do they keep their pants up?”

Before the great crackdown on immigration, it took forever to cross through U.S. customs and border inspection when crossing into the United States. Now, at least in Texas, crossing through U.S. customs and border inspection is a breeze. Today, the problem lies on the Mexican side of la frontera. Today, Mexican authorities stop every car going INTO the United States, and inspect everything from the glove compartment to the trunk. This thorough inspection solves the problem of security, but it creates another problem. Right now, especially with the very low number of illegal border crossings, tens of thousands of eager, patriotic Americans serving the CBP, ICE, USCIS, DHS, the National Guard, and the U.S. military have nothing to do. A short time ago, I asked the CBP agent who was checking my passport. “Kind of quiet around here these days, huh?”

“No, sir,” he said brusquely. “We have a lot to do.” I drove on, past six other border officials who were busy figuring out what to do.

Crossing the border is one thing. Crossing the border with suspicious cargo is something else. I once had a business making sugarcane juice in Mexico. The first time I crossed the border into the US, I went to the office of the commercial inspectors to show them the product I was importing.

“What do you have there?”

“Sugarcane juice.”

“Sugarcane juice?”

“Yes.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Well, here it is. It tastes really good.”

The inspector opened the bottle of juice and poured some of the liquid onto the ground. Some other inspectors looked at the puddle, then looked at each other.

I broke the silence. “Well, what do we have to do to bring this into the U.S.?”

“I don’t know. You will have to talk with the FDA.”

“Is there an FDA official here?”

“No.” 

Pause.

“So, can I go?”

“Sure.”

When I first began crossing la frontera, the border towns were fun places, chock full of bars, stuffed frogs, obscene tequila glasses, and boys’ towns, zona rosas, regulated red light districts where thousands of young Texans lost their virginity, and thousands of old Texans tested their virility. Old-timers fondly remember The Kentucky Club in Juarez, Moderno in Piedras Negras (famous for its frog’s legs), The Cadillac Bar in Nuevo Laredo, and La Cucaracha in Reynosa. Today, almost all of the border towns are good time ghost towns, except for Nuevo Progresso, which lies across the border from Progresso, Texas.

Nuevo Progresso looks like the set of a drunken spaghetti western. Ramshackle plywood bars spill beer and margarita mix out onto the main street. It is indeed a gold rush town, only today immigrants are not rushing for gold; they are rushing for cheap meds, cheap dental work, cheap mani-pedis, cheap booze, and cheap Mexican recuerdos, most of them from China.

One of my associates in Nuevo Progresso is an excellent painter who makes a decent living painting saws for vacationing Midwesterners and cow skulls for football fans. I commissioned him to paint a sculpture for me, which led to an interesting confrontation with a U.S. CBP agent at the border.

“Are you bringing anything with you today, sir?” the agent asked. “Medications? Liquor?”

“No, sir, the only thing I am bringing into the US is a statue of the Virgin Mary that a friend of mine painted for me.”

The agent stepped out of his booth. He approached my car, bent over to look closely at me through the window, and, with a look of sorrow and pity, said, “You know, sir, Jesus Christ is our only Lord and Savior.”

I sighed. Did I really have to win a theological debate in order to enter the United States?

“Do you have an aunt?” I asked the zealous border guard.

“Yes.”

“And does your aunt help you out sometimes? You know, talk to you about family problems and stuff like that?”

“Yes.”

“And does that make you feel better?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sir, the Blessed Virgin is just like your aunt. When I am feeling bad, sometimes I talk to her, and she helps me out. You see?”

His face brightened. “Yeah,” he said. “I get it,” and he waved me on.

According to the AI search engine Deepseek, there are 48 land crossings between the U.S. and Mexico, 35 of which are in Texas. These land crossings include 6 railroad crossings and one ferry crossing. This information is incorrect. There are actually two ferry crossings across the border. One is located at Los Ebanos, Texas. Here, a hand-drawn ferry hauls three cars and pedestrians back and forth across the Rio Grande whenever the weather permits.

The other ferry crossing lies at the mouth of Boquillas Canyon on the fringes of Big Bend National Park. Here, surrounded by a vast rocky wilderness area, a massive air-conditioned, concrete structure, flourishing a large American flag, guards the footpath to the muddy bank of the Rio Grande. At this point, the Rio Grande is about fifteen feet wide and knee deep. A soggy but spirited Mexican river guide invites international travelers to board the aluminum rowboat that serves as the ferry. He then pulls the ferry across the river, hauling four gringos at a time across the border.

Once on Mexican soil, travelers pay a few dollars to the Mexican entrepreneur sitting on a lawn chair who actually runs the transnational operation. This same entrepreneur also owns a few burros, which he generously rents to exhausted travelers who want to ride rather than walk the three hundred yards or so to Boquillas, a dusty collection of bars and street vendors hawking copper wire sculptures. (For a more poetic description of the crossing at Boquillas, listen to the song Gringo Honeymoon by Robert Earle Keen.)

My favorite border crossing doesn’t have a bridge, a road, a railroad, or a ferry. To reach it, you drive east of Brownsville, Texas, past Elon Musk’s Space City, until the highway stops, and you hit the Gulf of Mexico. (Please arrest me for not calling it the Gulf of America.) Here you turn left. (It is best to do this at low tide, unless you have a four-wheel drive vehicle.) After driving on the sand for about fifteen minutes, you will hit Boca Chica.

Boca Chica is the spot where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Boca Chica means Little Mouth, a name for the crossing, which is entirely accurate. At Boca Chica, the mighty Rio Grande is a placid waterway passing over a sandbar. The water that marks the international boundary between Mexico and the U.S. is about ten yards wide and only a few feet deep, deeper when the tide is coming in, shallower when the tide is going out.

To cross the border at Boca Chica, I park my car, get out, walk to the edge of the river, strip off my clothes, jump into the river, swim across the border, stand up naked in Mexico, and scream “¡Viva Mexico!” Then I swim back across the border, stand up naked in the U.S., and scream, “Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue. Hip, Hip, Hooray.” Anyone who is near enough to see my sagging man-boobs and hear my grito assumes that I am drunk, which I usually am.

On the drive back from Boca Chica to Brownsville, you pass through a border checkpoint. As with all the other 49 land border crossings, you have to show an ID to enter the U.S. An American driver’s license is sufficient. Yes, if you are a U.S. citizen, you do not need a passport to enter the U.S. by land. A U.S. driver’s license is sufficient. I have no idea why a ten-year-old airline passenger is more dangerous than a forty-five-year-old hunter driving a three-quarter-ton pick-up, but so it goes. La frontera is that absurd.

One time, I decided to break my rules and have some fun with the Boca Chick CBP agent.

“Are you bringing anything back with you?”

“No, sir. But I have to admit to you, sir, that I just swam back and forth across the Rio Grande naked.”

“What?”

“I just swam across the border naked. I am an official gringo mojado.”