Braving Big Bend: Into the Canyon

This is a tale of adventure, misadventure, and a whole lot of adrenaline-induced fun. I visited Texas for the first time in March 2017. Prepared with wildly incorrect stereotypes, a brand new camera, and a few key local phrases ("bless yer heart"), I ventured into the Lone Star State. In case you missed it: Day 1, Day 2

Every night we'd promise ourselves that we should wake up with the sunrise the next morning. Every morning I'd be too cold to stick my head out from the sleeping bag. The picture above is the closest we got to the sunrise- I think we fell back asleep after taking the photo.

#1 on our to-do list: get a big breakfast at the little buffet place we had visited the previous day. After filling up our fuel tanks with food and gas we strode into Far Flung Outdoor Centre, a tour agency that does everything from rentals to Jeep/ATV tours to guided river trips to letting you play with their cute dogs while they load up your truck. We met outdoor experts who recommended that we take a canoe and a ducky (an inflatable kayak) between the three of us. Fending off attempts from a friendly barista trying to lure us into the Canyon Brew Coffee shop out front, we drove off to our next adventure.

We started unloading at the Santa Elena Canyon Trailhead, the beginning of our "boomerang" trip on the Rio Grande. The parking lot was deserted when we finished untying all the ropes and slathered ourselves with sunscreen (I had learned my lesson on the first day). I was persuaded into bringing my camera along for the ride, but not before I sealed it up in a plastic bag first.

Big Bend Basics: A boomerang trip means paddling upstream first and then enjoying the smooth ride back down the river to your original start point.

Before pushing off into the Rio Grande

Michael decided to take the ducky by himself as he had kayaked before. Daniel and I went ahead of him in the canoe. Going upstream was difficult but doable in the canoe. On the other hand, paddling upstream in the ducky was a nightmare. It shifted directions violently with each stroke, sending whichever unfortunate user on it into a wild zigzag pattern.

Daniel and I had to keep rowing, or else we would be washed back downstream. The river was shallow and calm for the most part. I'm still not sure how we didn't notice, but our canoe got sucked into a swift eddy (where water flows around obstacles like big rocks, creating a current moving in the opposite direction of the river). The canoe flipped suddenly, tossing limbs, paddles, and backpacks over the sides. Everything was soaking wet as I frantically rummaged around for my camera once we were safely on a sandbar. Thank you, Ziploc freezer bag- you're a lifesaver.

Michael and Daniel switched vessels and we continued up the river. Halfway to the mouth of the canyon we realized that it was easier on our muscles to hop out and drag the finicky ducky instead of rowing.

Big Bend Basics: The U.S. calls this 3,034 km long river Rio Grande, but other names for it include...

Rio Grande del Norte ("Great River of the North")
Río Bravo (furious/angry/agitated river)
Río Bravo del Norte

Resting right before entering the canyon

The mouth of the Santa Elena Canyon. Left wall: rocks belonging to Mexico.

Right wall: rocks belonging to the U.S. River: international boundary.

Big Bend Basic: The Rio Grande dramatically changes direction, following the border of the U.S. and Mexico. The National Park gets its name from this "big bend".

The water at the mouth of the canyon was about knee high. Daniel urged us to jump into the watercrafts so he could just pull us along. As we entered the canyon, the water became calmer. We had been the only people in the river, but it somehow became more apparent at this point. Our sun-beaten skin soothed by the shade from the soaring sides, we relaxed in the quiet. A slight breeze flowed through, rippling the surface of the river gently. A thin strip of blue sky hovered overhead, hindered by dusty rock. We were lone explorers, venturing into the unknown.

The best English word to sum up my thoughts at that point would be awe, but the Japanese have a specific word for it: yūgen. It's the feeling you get when you're standing on the top of a mountain or looking up at countless constellations on a cloudless night. You're suddenly aware of how immense everything is, and how very tiny you are in comparison. Did you know that inspiring awe in people might be linked to more creativity and lower markers of inflammation?

(Michael apparently hates this feeling- I'm sure he's in the minority though.)

Yūgen according to Japanese aesthetician Zeami Motokiyo:

"To watch the sun sink behind a flower clad hill. To wander on in a huge forest without thought of return. To stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that disappears behind distant islands. To contemplate the flight of wild geese seen and lost among the clouds.”

The boys discovered a weird sand phenomenon here. The sand in some spots acted like a trampoline when you jumped on it- it was bouncy!

I don't remember when it happened, but eventually I was told to sit in the ducky that was tied to the back of the canoe that Daniel and Michael paddled. The canoe "couldn't" fit three people according to the Far-Flung experts, and being the water made pulling the ducky and I effortless. Rendered useless, my new role was to take as many photos as possible of them rowing. We stopped right before we reached a spot called Robber's Cove (? unsure of the name, wasn't able to find anything about coves on the internet). Chowing down a few snacks, we turned around to make our way back as we were running out of time.

By now more travelers were hiking along the river. I was still lounging in the ducky, feet up on the sides, comfortably enjoying our 2-manpower engine guiding our caravan downstream. A group of tourists resting on the shore waved to us as a man shouted:

"Looks like you're the administrator of this team!"

"Someone's gotta do it," I shrugged exaggeratedly.

Our laughs echoed off the canyon walls as we (me, mostly) continued to float down the river lazily. A man with a large camera standing high up on the ledge of a cliff took a few aerial shots of us after yelling/asking for permission. We passed a TV or documentary crew and a few families on the river bank. Once we got through the more turbulent waters we were greeted by a visibly tired father-son duo in a double kayak asking about how much farther the canyon was. A couple helped us drag everything out of the water. We were back in civilization, and we were hungry. Part 3: grabbing grub in a ghost town!