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TERLINGUA AND LAJITAS |
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Some of the long-abandoned mercury mining communities on the fringes
of Big Bend are now stuttering back to life as alternative tourist
centers. TERLINGUA in particular, a strangely appealing little ghost
town scattered across the scrubby hills along Hwy-170, is populated by
the adventurous types who work for the local rafting companies, along
with assorted drifters lured by the solitary desert life. Near its fly-blown
cemetery, against a backdrop of evocative ruins, the hugely atmospheric
Starlight Theater, Bar and Restaurant (tel 915/371-2326), with its
postmodern reinterpretation of Southwestern decor, is the perfect place
to enjoy a cold beer and soak up the haunting desert view; it also
serves food, and puts on evening shows in summer. A mile or so east
along the highway is the only other place to eat in the evening: La Kiva
(tel 915/371-2250), attached to the RV-oriented Big Bend Travel Park ,
is carved into the rock, and attracts a young crowd to its New Age bar,
restaurant and evening gigs. The Chisos Mining Company Motel on Hwy-170
(tel 915/371-2254; $35-50) has reasonable rooms .
Allow around $125 for a full day's rafting along Santa Elena Canyon;
canyons further out can cost up to $150. Far Flung Adventures, based
next door to the Starlight in Terlingua, runs all the Big Bend routes,
as well as many other Southwestern rivers, and also does memorable
multiday music trips with renowned Texan musicians (tel 915/371-2325 or
1-800/359-4138, ).
LAJITAS , west of Terlingua, is the main put-in for rafting trips, but
has largely been taken over by the somewhat ersatz Lajitas on the Rio
Grande resort complex, with its five separate hotels (tel 915/424-3471,
; $75-100). However, it attempts to pull in the tourists with its
distinguished political figurehead - Clay Henry III, a beer-drinking
goat who beat four other candidates - including a wooden Indian and a
real person - for the mayoral post. Look for his pen, littered with
empty Lone Star Longneck bottles, outside the adobe Lajitas Trading
Post.
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