BORDER towns in the United States are curious places. Sometimes, they’re a preview of coming attractions — like in El Paso, a town that is every bit as Mexico as it is the United States. Sometimes, they serve to remind us of the differences between our country and others. Take Detroit, for instance. Just a river away, workaday Windsor, Ontario sparkles like a jewel, even by the strictest of comparisons.
Sunland Park, New Mexico cannot calm down to save its life. There are at least two clear reasons for this; both of them involve blaming geography. Numbering about 13,000 residents, Sunland Park is a No Man’s Land, pure and simple, painted into a corner of inhospitable desert that’s just a traffic light or two away from El Paso’s west side and less than 2,000 feet from the north end of Ciudad Juarez, in Mexico’s Chihuahua State.
The nervous energy of both cities — an energy far more nervous than usual, given the circumstances that have lead to Juarez being one of the more dangerous places in the hemisphere at the moment — rubs off on Sunland Park in a big way. It may not occur to those who live here; civic boosters may prefer to think of Sunland Park as a place where there is a popular racetrack, a couple of El Paso’s more interesting restaurants and some very friendly people.
To the traveler, however, none of these assets are any match for the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over this teeming, painted-brown metropolis, a sometimes confusing place, united by heritage and yet divided by fences.
Thank goodness for Ardovino’s. Up on the side of Sunland Park’s Mount Cristo Rey, just beneath the train tracks that carry Amtrak’s Sunset Limited to Los Angeles most evenings, this is as close as it gets to heaven around here.
After a 20-year hiatus, this family-run establishment dating back to 1949 — and housed in a 100-plus year-old ranch house — is a favorite meeting spot of the area elite. There’s a bar with a scotch list that would warm the heart of any aficionado, along with reasonable prices to match.
Wine glasses clink in the restaurant; business deals are struck with cigars out on the patio, all under the watchful eye of the Border Patrol . Here, we are worlds away from the uncertainty of Juarez, from the tension of El Paso. Here, it costs just a few bucks for a generous pour of Oban 14-year. This is just strange.
I’m at Ardovino’s because of Texas. Not that I was trying to get out of the state. It just so happens that driving north along the Rio Grande from El Paso, you quickly run out of Texas.
The week had begun with a visit to church, which seemed like a better idea than spending Sunday morning wandering in El Paso’s urban desert. It had become clear that until such a time as I could figure out what the hell was going on around here, perhaps I ought to leave. So, I drove south to see some countryside.
One of the most compelling things about the region, it turns out, is its history, going right back to the Tigua and Isleta Indians, back to the Spaniards. We northeastern types don’t learn too much about Western history. Fascinating stuff, all of it: How The West Was Won — en espanol.
In the quiet town of San Elizario, Texas, you can learn in about ten minutes that explorer Don Juan de Onate and his band of merry men first crossed the Rio Grande into what is now the United States in 1598, on his way to complete one of a handful of royal roads (El Camino Real) you’ll find traces of in the west. These are like the original Route 66, but with period costumes and more enslaving.
Local tradition has it that in San Elizario, Onate and his crew stopped to celebrate and give thanks before moving forward; you will hear it called, likely more than once, the first Thanksgiving. (I have no reason to doubt that this is true, and feel as if many of us probably would have preferred a Spanish Thanksgiving to one cooked by British self-denial fetishists.)
Today’s San Elizario is a very unique place, even for the Borderlands, a place where about half the people are poor as dirt and the rest are getting by. More than 95 percent of the local population considers itself Mexican-American. This makes sense; San Elizario has been part of New Spain/Mexico a lot longer than it has been part of the United States.
Around two o’clock in the afternoon, everyone was still trickling out of church — a beautiful, whitewashed chapel dating back to Presidio days, in the 1700’s. The English Choir was having a bake sale. I stopped in the small — and rather comprehensive museum — that accompanies the chapel; a woman who grew up in the town was only to eager to answer my questions about the various treaties and moving of borders that got us to where we are today, with the international line running straight down the middle of the Rio Grande.
It can be tough, trying to figure it all out; up until 150 years ago, the border was pretty flexible. The exhibits go to great lengths to point out the Fabulous Shrinking Mexico. Here, the visitor is reminded that more than half of Mexico’s original lands now belong to the United States.
I asked the lady if she crosses the river much these days, considering the circumstances surrounding the drug wars. No real reason to, she shrugged — all the good restaurants over there are opening up in El Paso. I think she has the right idea — it seems like most mornings in El Paso, there’s more news of bodies being uncovered in various ditches. The week I was there, one grave was uncovered that contained multiple bodies. It was found just across the Rio Grande from sleepy San Elizario.
NO HAY RIVERWALK
While a visit to Juarez that day seemed ill-advised – Mexico had just sent in troops to restore order, and it all seemed like too much risk-taking for a Sunday afternoon — it seemed like a good idea to at least explore the area right along the river. Turns out, though, that every access point to the Rio Grande, at least down around San Elizario, is guarded by the Border Patrol. Watch towers with tinted windows signal that you are being observed; the last thing I needed was to try and convince a fresh-faced recruit that some tourists really do want to simply stroll along one of our nation’s most iconic rivers.
In El Paso, the inaccessibility is heightened, thanks to train tracks and a busy highway. And fences. Always fences. Even down at the city’s Chamizal National Memorial, a riverfront park, you cannot actually get to the river, thanks to these multiple manmade barriers. It isn’t until you hop on Paisano Drive heading west from downtown, away from the busy border area shopping district, past the historic Union Depot and a group of impoverished Juarez colonias visible to your left through the fence, that things improve. Suddenly, the barriers fall away.
Turns out, they haven’t gone away – the divide has merely taken a left turn. This signifies that now, instead of separating the United States and Mexico, the Rio Grande now merely divides New Mexico and Texas, a task it performs for just a dozen or so miles.
Then, Texas goes into the rearview mirror and it’s nothing but you, old adobes in villages the size of a postage stamp, endless pecan groves, appealing vineyards, fields of picked cotton and blue sky. The mood goes from rather tense to completely at ease, and before you know it, you’re stopping to taste wine, and suddenly, you’re on vacation.
Once the Chilean hostess at La Vina Winery realizes that I’m not just another snowbird in search of sugary sparkling wines, she opens up and gives me the skinny.
Owned by a Dallas couple, La Vina — 15 minutes or so north of El Paso — is one of a handful of New Mexico wineries. The tradition goes back centuries; the Spaniards grew grapes here from the very beginning. Today, while the heat can play havoc with the growth process, wineries like La Vina generally do at least one or two things particularly well. In La Vina’s case, after tasting at least six of their wines, it turns out that they do a good job with light, sweet whites like their Oro Loco, a Muscat with a citrusy vibe. Also of note: A rather solid Late Harvest Viognier.
THE OTHER NEW MEXICO
One of the great things about Southern New Mexico, and there are a few, is that it is nothing like Santa Fe or Taos. Rather quiet except for when the winds pick up, this part of the state is blessedly free of middle-aged women from the coasts draped in turquoise jewelry, all geared up to “heal” you and sell you their artwork.
Generally a frustrating bunch, one imagines them waking up one morning on the Upper East Side or on LA’s Westside and coming face to face with their own shallowness. For this, surely the only cure is to move to an expensive home on the edge of Santa Fe, preferably somewhere near a spa, in order to spend more time focusing on themselves.
Steering clear of the self-improvement capitals of the north comes with a heavy price, though. It means that for excitement, you’ve got Las Cruces.
Las Cruces is the sort of city that makes so faint an impression, you could forget it ten minutes after departure. It’s the sort of town that has you wishing you were back in Albuquerque. Despite being home to a large state university campus — and having, I’m told, lots to do — Cruces turns out to be as God’s Waiting Room as it gets this side of Pompano Beach. Worse, there’s no beach. There isn’t even a Boca. Flying in a couple of days earlier, my seatmate, who had transferred from California to Las Cruces for her job, warned me that the median population of the town was “at least 82.” If I liked to go to bed early, she laughed, I would really enjoy Las Cruces.
Of course, there is Mesilla.
Mesilla was the original settlement in the valley, and probably should have stayed that way — just five minutes or so from Las Cruces, you switch planets. The town — on the Rio Grande, of course — is Santa Fe writ small, perhaps even closer to a handsome village in Mexico than anything you’ve encountered in the Southwest before, simply because it wasn’t tacked on to or repurposed after the Gadsden Purchase made it part of the United States. Mesilla, it is said, remains the most faithful to the original of any plaza in New Mexico. Arriving there for the first time, it certainly feels like this could be the case.
Part of this is fate — when the rail lines were laid down, they went through Cruces instead, and that was the end of that. Today’s Mesilla is quiet and friendly, with a little bit of everything that makes the region worth visiting conveniently located so as to save you time and gas money. Taste the wine, sample the local pecans, hit up the bookstore, relax in the plaza, have lunch, maybe a margarita, see the San Albino church, off you go. For those who want to stay longer, the homes here cost a fraction of their counterparts up north.
DOWN THE HATCH
From Las Cruces and Mesilla, the valley, already just about 4 miles or so wide, tightens like a noose, down to the point where you’re essentially in a canyon, and there’s no room to plant anything. Since I-25, the north-south freeway that takes New Mexicans to Texas and Colorado, runs parallel to the Rio Grande as well, the road is basically your own. This leaves time and space to enjoy the pastoral landscape. More pecan groves, more cotton, more ranches. Near Arrey, a sea of young heifers appear to be enjoying their first spring.
Then, past one of the ubiquitous Border Patrol checkpoints you quickly grow accustomed to in the far Southwest, signs for chiles stop popping up. This alerts you to the fact that you are already in Hatch. It isn’t harvest time — that comes towards the end of summer — and the planting appears to be completed.
This means that Hatch is dead. Programmed by years of ogling New Mexico photography books, I am disappointed to learn that bunches of dried red chiles do not hang from every porch. In real life, Hatch turns out to be like any other farming town; full of substandard housing, burdened with an almost lifeless downtown and sleepy as all hell. Apparently, being the Chile Capital of the World does not bring you fortune — just fame.
Hatch appears to be unmoved by the whole affair; they’re looking towards the future, with a whole new slogan: “The New Gateway To Space.”
It’s true, you know. Or could be, if they finally start construction on the Spaceport America site, just out of town. As of now, work has yet to begin on the expensive but fantastic-looking Foster and Partners-designed terminal, but organizers are still holding to an expected occupancy date of next year for primary tenant Virgin Galactic.
With dreams of a brave new world still just dreams for the moment, Hatch is by and large keeping it simple. One restaurateur is betting on the future, which means that Hatch already has improved its dining scene by about 100 percent, which is to say there is actually a half-way appealing restaurant in which to dine.
Hidden behind about forty vintage signs and gee-gaws, Sparky’s Burgers, Barbecue and Espresso turns out to be one of those places that tries a little bit of everything. It does most of them well — particularly the green chile cheeseburgers.
If you’ve never one of these — perhaps one of the most incredible fast foods you can find in the United States — Sparky’s in Hatch is a good place to start. If nothing else, you can be assured that the green chile is going to be superb (it comes from a local farm). Crowning a more-than-decent 1/3 pound cheeseburger, it’s a lunch to remember. Then again, you may want a half-pound of the pulled pork, too — it’s only $4.75, and worth the expense. By this time, you have probably figured out that I ordered both. And ate both.
While I wait for my lunch, the smiling staff behind the counter plies me with free ice cream . Their mothers apparently never warned them against spoiling one’s appetite. I said yes, because nobody says no to free ice cream, particularly not in the desert. I wouldn’t need to consider eating again for a while — probably not until Albuquerque.
10 MUST-STOPS ALONG THE RIO GRANDE
Road-tripping from El Paso to Albuquerque? Here’s where to go
1) Ardovino’s Desert Crossing
Sunland Park
Just steps from the border, this family-run restaurant is the perfect place for sunset drinks. There’s a full restaurant and a weekly farmer’s market. A plan to rent out vintage travel trailers on site is in the works (1 Ardovino Drive, [575] 589-0653).
2) La Vina Winery
La Union
This friendly operation not far from El Paso is known for its light, sweet white Oro Loco, a Muscat with distinct citrus notes. Perfect for New Mexico’s hot summer days (4201 S. Highway 28, [575] 882-7632).
3) Chope’s Town Café
La Mesa
This Las Cruces-area institution features both a restaurant and an old-school cantina, sitting side by side on a dusty lot in a quiet farming community (16145 S Highway 28, [575] 233-3420).
4) Mesilla
Just minutes from Las Cruces, this perfectly-formed small town has historic charm to spare; the plaza is considered to be the most authentic in the state, and certainly feels that way. If you make one stop in Southern New Mexico, this should be it (oldmesilla.org).
5) Hatch
An unremarkable rural town comes alive during the end-of-summer chile harvest; things reach fever pitch September 5 and 6, the dates of this year’s annual Chile Fest, drawing thousands from around the globe. Who will be this year’s Chile Queen? You won’t know if you don’t go (hatchchilefest.com)
6) Truth or Consequences
While the town that named itself after a popular game show didn’t exactly hit the jackpot as a result, things have improved in recent times. This curious river town is hot spring central, with many resorts to choose from. A core group of creative types have breathed new life into the downtown area; a pleasant place to linger for a night (truthorconsequencesnm.net).
7) El Camino Real International Heritage Center
Socorro
It’s highly probable you’ll be the only visitor when you stop in at this museum/visitor’s center that chronicles the history of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, which is the proper name for the trail forged by explorer Don Juan de Onate up to what became Santa Fe. Interesting stuff, and worth the lengthy drive into the middle-of-nowhere to get here (www.caminorealheritage.org).
8) Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge
Socorro
This vast preserve, spanning nearly 60,000 acres, is prime bird watching territory. While the refuge offers wildlife year-round, fall is the big deal here, when tens of thousands of birds arrive for their winter holiday (www.fws.gov/refuges).
9) Isleta
With roots back in the 1300s, this primarily Tiwa-speaking pueblo just south of Albuquerque is best-known in the state for its shimmering casino just off of I-10. Down in the valley and along the river, however, is one of the oldest surviving settlements in the United States, a historic village with the impressive St. Augustine Church, which dates back to 1612 (isletapueblo.com).
10) Barelas
Albuquerque
Albuquerque loves to flog its underwhelming Old Town to outsiders; more compelling is this less tarted-up but far more colorful district, just across Route 66 (Central Avenue) from the city’s dull downtown. First settled in the 1600’s, Barelas has had some serious ups and downs; it is now home to the vast National Hispanic Cultural Center and Barelas Coffee House, a favorite of politicians who show up to eat red chile meat and schmooze with constituents (barelas.net).