Big Bend, Rio Grand / Mexican Border

 Entering the final few miles of driving south into the Big Bend National Park offered us another grand tunnel.

 In the Chisos Mountains a few miles west of where we camped.

 Hiking a trail down to the Rio Grand a few miles from our campsite, we noticed burros and men on the other side of the river.

  The Rio here is gentle, shallow and sometimes appearing near still.

 We found the men had set up little 'donation request sites' along the trail we were on, trying to offer their crafts for a few US dollars.  The town across the river had been a mining town years ago, but once the US mining company got what it wanted, the town was left to it's own devices.  Tourism was 'something for them' until 911, when the US clamped down on this open border location.

  The people there have little so try to ask for 'donations for their crafts'.  Signs placed on our trail by the US Gov. said clearly, it was a "Crime" to purchase.................  yet they were allowing the Gift Shop at the N.P. campground to sell these same crafts for 3 and 4 times the $.

 Along the river's sides were evidence of pre-columbian indian habitation.  These holes were created by the Indians grinding their seeds and grain on the rocks, slowly eroding the soft rock into pockets quite deep.

Layers of silty sediment builds up and then later might be washed away

 but within it is sometimes embeded plant or animal life that becomes fossilized, like these seed pods.