Tour to Old Guerrero

Nearly 100 miles up the Rio Grande River from here, Falcon Dam was constructed in the 1940-50's. The lake it created flooded a Mexican town, Guerrero, a town of 30,000 people. The town was relocated to a "dry spot" about 40 miles, by road, downstream, but then during a drought in Southern Texas in the 1980-90's, the water level of the reservoir fell leaving much of the old town of Guerrero "high & dry".

I signed up for a one-day "Tour to Old Guerrero", but since quite a bit of walking would be required, Carole chose to stay home. I met and boarded the Tour Bus at 6:30 AM along with twenty other Winter Texans, a driver, and a Tour Guide to begin what would turn out to be a very long day. We drove Northwest about 65 miles to Roma, Texas, where we crossed into Mexico. We continued to the Mexican town of Cludad Miguel Aleman, where we stopped for a Mexican breakfast at a very nice restaurant.


















We were served four breakfast tacos (a soft flour tortilla stuffed with a cooked mixture of ground sausage, peppers, onions, and potatoes), Mexican sweet bread (a little like a donut with icing and no hole), orange juice, and coffee.

From there we drove to the center of Falcon Dam, where we stopped at the monument marking the border between US and Mexico; that's me standing with one foot in the US and one foot in Mexico.























The lake covers 98,000 acres and the US-Mexico border winds through the center of the lake and dam following the original route of the Rio Grande. The purpose of this reservoir is to reduce flooding in The Valley and to supply water for cities & towns and irrigation in both the US and Mexico.











From the lake, we proceeded further Northwest, then turned off the asphalt highway and followed a dirt road across scrub brush land up & down hills for 10 miles. The part of the road pictured had just been graded, most of the 10 mile trip was on rough road with lots of ruts and potholes . . . and we were riding in a 40,000 lb bus!









The only thing I saw for that 10 miles was mesquite trees, lots of cactus, yucca plants, and little bunches of scrub grass . . . and some cattle grazing. I don't know how the cattle managed to find enough to eat.

Also, notice that the fence posts are just sticks of wood spaced every two feet or so, some tall and some short ones, most only about an inch in diameter. The woven wire was only about 3 feet high but was topped with four or five strands of barbed wire.





At the end of the 10 miles of dirt road, we entered the old town of Geurrero. Founded in 1749, it was a major town along the Rio Grande River and had grown to 30,000 population before it was evacuated in the early 1950's. About half of the town is now above water. The town was laid out in squares with straight streets and cross streets.


















This house had a fireplace in the far corner, presumably for cooking.














This was the home of a wealthy family . . .
















Here is what's left of a hotel . . .















and a street that disappears into the lake . . .















. . . where the old mission church stands in four or five feet of water.

The town square is across the street from the mission, also now under four or five feet of water.










All of the buildings were built with stone cut from nearby quarries. It's interesting to walk among these old historic buildings. We had about an hour to wander around town and through buildings on our own. A really historic place . . . established over 250 years ago!

After we all were finished walking the town, we returned to the bus where the Tour Guide had prepared snacks for us, then it was back in the bus and the 10 mile ride back down the dirt road to the highway.

When we returned to the town of Miguel Aleman, we stopped to tour a Mexican boot factory, but I'll leave that for another Blog. From there, we went to the same restaurant where we had breakfast. It was 4:00 PM and time for a late lunch. We were served a wonderful chicken fried chicken fillet covered with gravy along with mashed potatoes and all of the margaritas we could drink.

The Tour Guide had been trying to teach us some Spanish all day and said that we would speak better Spanish after a few margaritas . . . but it didn't really help.

After our late lunch, we reboarded the bus for the ride home. The Tour Guide put on a movie and passed around bags of freshly popped pop corn. I still don't know how he came up with those, but it was a good way to end a thoroughly enjoyable "Tour to Old Guerrero" as we didn't arrive back home until nearly 8:00 PM.