There’s a pretty parquicito or little park as you cross to NP going south right behind the UETA duty free shop. It has a little fake jacal type barn. Also, some tables. Old time benches and brick pavement. A nice place to rest before the trek into Mexico. I hadn’t really noticed it before…I had been to Mexico a few weeks before…To photograph a picturesque old fort that had been turned into a museum in Matamoros. Pictures are forthcoming this fall.
The river was as up this time just as much as it had been down the time before. More heavy rains, tropical moisture, but it was Veracruz that got the hurricane. Let’s hope the dams hold. Someday a report on the condition of Falcon Dam will be forth coming, but I can’t say when. They haven’t let out any info so far. (Check out RioGrandeGuardian.com) Speaking of the IBWC, (The International Boundary and Water Commision) they were out on the bridge just before the Mexican side…They were dropping an oblong shaped object, with a propeller at the shaped end, into the brownish, greenish liquid of the Rio Bravo. They were either measuring river flow, or launching a super-mini submarine. I should have taken a picture, but had other things to get too. Anyway, I’ve pretty much described it.
The website, Shop-Progreso.com, had pointed out on their front page that no Winter Texan had been killed or assaulted in Nuevo Progreso for as long as anyone could remember. And yes, I can’t remember when it ever happened either. Nuevo Progreso-ions know where their buns are buttered, or where the tortilla is greased. And that side is selling to Tourists. You can actually stroll down the street there drinking a beer or margarita and the constabulary will leave you be. Don’t try that elsewhere in Mexico….
In spite of all this it felt kind of lonely as I passed the twenty something chicas that are now a major part of the new aduana (customs agents). Feminism has come to Mexico, sort of , in some respects. Women are supposed to be less corruptible than men, but I doubt that. They are both fast learners and much harder to catch at any kind of deception. Well, that’s what I have observed and I’ve know some women, and I don’t mean it that way. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Still, it felt kind of lonely, there in town. There were more vendors and beggars than tourists on the streets, and this was Friday afternoon. Concluded business, had lunch at Arturos, washed down with a couple of Dos Equis and called it an afternoon..
Will have a Matamoros report up soon.
