Travel
Hidden Valley
Green jays, blue water, rosy dawns on the beach—the Valley has all that dedicated nature lovers and seekers of solitude need. Brownsville’s Sabal Palm Grove has it made in the shade.
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We made sure to return to the island by ten o’clock, because that is when Ila Loetscher, the celebrated Turtle Lady, opens her back yard to visitors. The half-hour show on the deck at Sea Turtle, Inc. (5805 Gulf Boulevard; open Tuesdays and Saturdays; admission $2 adults, $1 children), was an inimitable combination of silliness and seriousness. Aided by an assistant, the feisty 85-year-old Loetscher dressed up her acquiescent reptiles—some weighing more than one hundred pounds—in wigs and hats, got them to wave their flippers, and even cajoled the audience into shouting in unison, “Howdy-do, Texas” and “We love turtles too.” But amid the nonsense, she painlessly slipped in some facts and a lecture on the hazards that turtles, especially the endangered Kemp’s ridley, face from both nature and man. We bought postcards and turtle souvenirs on the way out.
Afterward, we went to Isla Blanca County Park, at the southern tip of the island ($1.50 a vehicle), cruised by Dolphin Cove to look in vain for dolphins, walked past the fishermen on the jetty, and toured the University of Texas—Pan American Coastal Studies Laboratory (open 1:30—4:30 daily except Saturday; donations accepted). The anonymous building behind the beach pavilion is a research facility, but a roomful of displays on the Gulf included mounted specimens and aquarium tanks with local marine life. My seven-year-old was smitten with the sea urchins; the graceful sea robin, with its winglike fins; and a tiny octopus.
Then we packed up our belongings and headed west toward McAllen, veering off the expressway to pass through Mission and Weslaco on the business route of U.S. 83. At the intersection of Val Verde Road near Donna, we paused momentarily at the Val Verde RV Park to ogle the ruins of the ornate white stucco bathhouse and swimming pool where Bette Davis once reputedly frolicked. We sighed, thinking about Mr. Rock Around the Clock himself, Bill Haley, who managed the spread until his death in 1980, and couldn’t resist tapping our feet to a rock and roll beat in his memory.
A few miles farther up the road, we pulled in to inspect the venerable San Juan Hotel, one of the Valley’s oldest, a charming structure with a mission-style facade, a small courtyard, breeze-ways, and neat if unspectacular rooms (double rooms $26—$40; 512-781-5339). We opted for the less-historic but amenity-loaded Doubletree Inn, a.k.a. Casa de Palmas, the restored grand hotel in downtown McAllen (double rooms start at $68, includes breakfast; 512-631-1101).
After unpacking, we made a beeline for our favorite Mexican food standby, Johnny’s (1010 Houston Avenue, at the corner of South Tenth), to split a botanas platter of fajitas, flautas, quesadillas, guacamole, and frijoles. At $25, the platter easily filled up the four of us, but we grieved when we learned that the complimentary marinated onions had been discontinued when the restaurant was remodeled and expanded.
The next morning we drove twelve miles southeast to the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, at FM 907 and U.S. 281, the jewel of the mid-Valley. This compact two-thousand-acre forest on the banks of the Rio Grande is home or a rest stop to 377 species of birds. From Thanksgiving to May, hour-long guided tram tours on the park’s main road tell you what is lurking in the tangle of vegetation a few feet away, but the trams run mostly during the middle of the day, when most of the residents are taking siestas (tours $2.50 adults, $1 children under twelve). Arriving early and exploring on foot, we saw much more.
Fifteen minutes away in Weslaco, we got another whiff of the wild inside a tiny twelve-acre patch of green underneath a lush canopy of leaves that offered respite from the quickly warming sun. The plot is technically the back yard of Jim and Cyndy Chapman, plus a citrus orchard gone fallow and other donated parcels of property, but it is open to the public by appointment (tours arranged through the Audubon House, 512-968-3275). Cyndy Chapman, the head of the Wildlife Corridor Task Force, which helps coordinate federal, state, municipal, and private refuges, started this pocket preserve several years ago, although the city kept sending in crews to mow the grass. “This is not a weedy lot. It’s a forest—a mid-Valley riparian thorn forest to be exact,” she insisted. It’s also a birding spot, where visitors can catch a glimpse of parrots and other exotics. “You should have seen it the day three thousand Mississippi kites came though here,” she enthused.
Another perspective of Chapman’s thicket can be gleaned from the picnic table behind the offices of the Frontera Audubon Society (1019 South Texas Boulevard) around the corner. To arrange a visit, call Sylvia Juarez at the Audubon House (512-968-3275). Six blocks away is another pocket preserve, the Valley Nature Center (301 South Border). By the way, Frontera Audubon maintains a 24-hour birding-alert hot line (512-565-6773).
Weslaco is also a good spot for breakfast or lunch, either at Keno’s Cafe (253 South Texas Boulevard, just off FM 88), for American-style fare, or at Armando’s, a block farther north, for taquitos, breakfast tacos, and other Mexican food.
From Weslaco, we were back on the U.S. 83 expressway, westbound, bypassing McAllen and Mission, for the Los Ebanos turnoff at Sullivan City. Los Ebanos, a village hidden in the thorn forest at the end of FM 886, three miles south of U.S. 83, sits on the north side of a river ford that has been used since the 1740’s. Here is a most unusual transit to Mexico, a metal barge accommodating three vehicles and maybe fifteen pedestrians that runs on the sweat and muscle of four men pulling on a rope.
The gentleman who collected our money at the tollbooth in the United States ($1 a vehicle, 25 cents a person) dispelled the rumor that the archaic ferry is not long for this world. “They have been saying they are going to build a bridge here since 1950,” said Oscar Simo, laughing.
Three minutes later, we were in another country. Less than two miles down a dirt road on the Mexican side is the town of Díaz Ordaz. The plaza, normally the hub of activity in a Mexican community, was eerily quiet. Instead, we found all the commerce and activity some eight blocks away, along Avenida Miguel Hidalgo, where Highway 2, the Mexican border highway, cuts through the settlement. Díaz Ordaz doesn’t have much in the way of gringo trinkets other than woven plastic shopping bags, lotería board games, and liquor. But you can soak up plenty of local color as you amble along. The modern Miramar seafood restaurant, at the corner of López Mateos and Sexto, was said to be the best in town, but we skipped lunch because there were more things to do and places to see. Besides, the ferry shuts down at 3:45 daily.
We should have known better than to hurry, though, because when we arrived at the ferry crossing, the crew was lunching on tortillas, bologna, and white bread under a shady ebony tree. We sat down, slowed down, and waited with them—there’s a different sense of time on both sides of the frontier here.
Back in the USA, we meandered along the little streets of Los Ebanos, stopping to marvel at all the brightly decorated memorials in the town cemetery, where the riot of colored artificial flowers made it look like the liveliest place in town. At the junction of U.S. 83, we turned east; Rio Grande City, Roma, and Falcon Dam to the west would wait for another trip. About four miles down the highway, at FM 1427, we swerved south into the settlement of Peñitas, whose historical marker traces the town’s founding to the 1520’s, when stragglers from the ill-fated Narvaez expedition settled there, according to local lore.
Just before the railroad crossing, we turned left onto a small paved road, taking a quarter-mile detour past low-roofed clapboard and adobe homes nestled under the ebony, ash, and palm trees, another surprise slice of the hidden Valley.
We continued east on FM 374, then turned right on FM 2062, the entrance to the Bentsen—Rio Grande Valley State Park, the third island refuge along the river, five miles southwest of Mission ($3 a vehicle). The 588-acre park of resaca woodlands and dry chaparral emphasizes recreation activities over the pure back-to-nature experience typical of Laguna Atascosa and Santa Ana. There is an overnight camping area with hookups and picnic facilities and a boat launch on an oxbow lake. The park has two hiking trails, including a two-mile route to the river, which beckoned even in the midafternoon. The path ended amid the canebrakes on the banks of one of the prettiest stretches of the Rio Grande below Falcon Dam. We didn’t encounter another soul on the path, which rated a few extra points on the solitude scale.
More history was only a few minutes east, just off the section of U.S. 83 known as Military Highway, south on FM 1016. Atop the only hill visible for miles around was La Lomita Farms (open Monday through Friday), a sand-brick-and-red-tile structure imposing enough to have been inspired by mythical Transylvania. Constructed as the Oblate Fathers Novitiate, the building was converted to a state mental health facility in 1974. It is worth a visit if only to see the reliquary in the small chapel. Inside the glass display case are various religious artifacts, notes, and the bone fragments of Father Pierre Yves Keralum, the so-called Lost Missionary, who disappeared in November 1872 while traveling to a nearby ranch.
Back down the hill, we followed the sign pointing to Pepe’s on the River, a funky thatched-roof open-air palapa bar and restaurant with the requisite strand of yellow light bulbs hanging over the patio. Pepe’s is pleasantly kicked-back most of the week but shifts into full-tilt boogie on Sunday afternoons, when bands play and boats and jet-skiers promenade along the river. On the way out, we stopped next door at the site of the original La Lomita mission, where the tiny whitewashed chapel, constructed in 1865 and rebuilt in 1899, is the only structure on the grounds that has survived the assorted hurricanes that have leveled the rest of the mission. Particularly intriguing was the grotto in the back of the chapel adorned with photographs, plastic flowers, scrawled petitions (“Help me find love”), and shiny metal Christmas ornaments.
Back in McAllen, we had our last supper at Casa del Taco (1100 Houston, off South Tenth), next door to our once-beloved Johnny’s. We passed up the enchiladas americanas—covered in chili and yellow cheese—in favor of sombreros, another Valley specialty, consisting of grilled sliced beef, chicken, or pork sautéed with tomatoes, onions, bacon, and green peppers, smothered in melted white cheese, and topped with a “sombrero” of flour tortillas ($5.95—$6.50). A bowl of cilantro-spiked charro beans came on the side. It was a wonderful gooey mess. Tip: The rear dining room and bar is where the action is—strolling mariachis and then some.
As I dozed off that night, visions of walking the wild Valley, through the tangles of brush and thorn forests all the way to the lush palm jungle, danced in my head, accompanied by the sights and sounds of colorfully plumed birds and exotic beasts. That prospect—and the memory of three days of being Somewhere Else without leaving the state—plunged me into a deep, satisfying sleep.
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