San Antonio

An hour or so south of Austin on I35 is the historic town of San Antonio. Right slap bang in the middle of that is the Alamo, a cool hat shop and an antiques/collectibles mall where I acquired the second of three pairs of cowboy boots. Acquiring them is easy – anything that fits on my small almost square extremities and isn't baby pink or vomit yellow will do just fine. Getting them home in my modest sized suitcase along with all the other wise and foolish purchases will be the fun part.

More on the social stuff later – first a piece of history. In brief, Spanish colonization started around 1718, when Franciscans constructed a mission, San Antonio de Valero, in what was originally a Coahuiltecan Indian village. The aim was to convert and educate the locals, and create an economic base for the settlement. More settlers arrived over the next few years and four more missions (all still standing) were built along the river. The original mission converted to military use and was known as The Alamo. The territory on which it stood became part of Mexico following a battle for independence from Spain.

The Alamo is now a central city monument at the site of the 1836 battle and thirteen day siege involving the Republic of Mexico against American settlers fighting for independence along with Tejanos (Mexicans living in Texas). Although the Mexicans won this gory battle and seized the mission, they were later defeated at the battle of San Jacinto and the independent Texas forces won the war. Texas became part of the United States in 1845. The Alamo is a haunting place at night, like many other historic battle grounds. Wikipedia has more information for interested readers.

The surrounding area is a little less daunting with the usual shops, bars, parks an attractive riverside walk and hotels, some with longer history than others. Horse drawn carriages decked with fairy lights offer tourists a leisurely way to browse the central area. A couple of real historic buildings grace the centre, though many more provide further evidence of the chain company mania that seems to have spread everywhere across the country like a highly contagious rash.

A bit away from the centre are some highlights of our two day pit stop in a slightly seedy but cheap and mostly acceptable motel. (The nut case screaming 'I am the redeemer', banging on random doors at 2am and causing the pool to be closed for fumigation the following days was not a permanent fixture!)

A great dinner venue is the fabulous Leaning Liberty Bar. A repurposed whore house I'm told, with unique features like heritage recipes on the menu, an upstairs veranda and downstairs windows that look ready to topple over into the street. Ain't nothin' straight about this old weather board and sheet iron baby – even if the business is nowadays.

Then there's Casbeers, what seems to be a typical Texas style watering hole (down to earth, slightly dingy, stuffed animal heads on the walls...) with cheap, basic, excellent food, good beer and live local blues to satisfy the most discerning 'chasin' the blues' tourist.

Carrying on down the 'friends of friends' hospitality route, our local guide is John, a Wall St Journal reporter turned school teacher. Methinks the man must either be mad or have a heart. Maybe even a little of both.

He and Tom are certainly amusing - vis this transcript for the above photo:

John: Once you buy a couch you can never be free [with pathos]
Tom: Fear of furniture is what I call that [with empathy].

Waving at Mexico

Moving on from TorC, as it is known locally, is a leisurely affair. Getting up at sunrise to walk while its still cool or take pictures before its too bright seems less appealing on the third day of the holiday. Maybe because its Monday morning. Lazing horizontal watching the light change is the activity of choice first thing today. Maybe the bone dissolving massage booked in for yesterday morning by TandS is something like a reason. After an hour and a half on the table, I literally was putty in Andre's hands. His fluent, French accented English conversation can only have helped. Dreamy! After the third attempt, even my 'computer knotted' shoulders gave in and turned to putty too. Tried not to reinstate them getting used to the eeePC and into the swing of writing up the trip. I am not taking notes or recording ideas marked 'significant' and know I am losing a few good ones, so need to keep up to the task.

Its after 11am when we finally get away after breakfast back at the slightly new age-y cafe. The road south runs through more of the by now familiar, near desert landscape. Its beautiful in its own way though I am pleased to be traveling through in the flame painted Volvo at 75 mph with a tap-refillable water bottle rather than following the traditional horseback trails. Its a long long road and there ain't much in the way of shade. I imagine its a long way down before you hit water.

After a couple of hours we reach the southern edge of New Mexico where it borders with Mexico and Texas. There is both visible and sensed difference as we cross into Texas and drive on through the sprawling modern border town of El Paso. Mexico is just a stone throw away across the Rio Grande. The visual impression is of dust settled on rows of brightly coloured single storey houses like replicated lines of crowded and crooked teeth. The land is flat this side of the river and hilly over there. The low rise urban sprawl of Juarez stretches as far as the eye can see until it fades out at the foot of a mountain range on the distant horizon. This side, the expanse is multi-level bill board edged highways, flyovers and concrete commercial sprawl. The start of everything being big in Texas.

Tom used to live in El Paso, and was keen to retrace old ground and offer another adventure by crossing over to Mexico for lunch. All local advice pointed to this being every bit as hazardous, if not more so, as the crossings made by Billy and Boyd in the fictionalized world of 'The Crossing.' This border has always had its troubles, right now they are pretty serious with drug gang 'wars', people trafficking and sickeningly regular shootings, sometimes of innocent bystanders. Stacy is not keen and by the sixth newspaper report of seemingly random shootings in half as many days, the idea is put to rest. No point in living dangerously for lunch when excellent and affordable Mexican food is on offer at every second corner on 'the safe side.' So I give a silent wave to Mexico before it fades out of sight.

Today's pitstop is at Papa's Pantry Restaurant in a small town named Van Horn, where a man called Ran Horn runs a veritable Alladin's cave of a second hand & collectibles store. The unique feature of Ran Horn's stock is an extensive collection of faut Van Gogh art works produced by the man himself. Its sorely tempting to buy one, because they are truly wonderful works, but the stacked in the back room collection with no where to hang at home puts the idea on hold. That and the trip budget, not that these are really expensive.

The budget has run so far to a few op shop treasures, but nothing much else apart from lots of good food and the odd bottle of Texan wine. Another unknown region's Shiraz scores a instant hit on the vineyard front and prices are very reasonable (U$7.99.) But back to Papa's where we were at the start of this paragraph, the 'Tes Leches' challenge begins.