The Tecate Journals: Seventy Days on the Rio Grande

by Keith Bowden

Book Overview

More than a man-against-nature adventure, The Tecate Journals floats along the border of political furor, cultural limbo, and dangerous human encounters. The Rio Grande is a national border, a water... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594850771
• ISBN13: 9781594850776
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Mountaineers Books
• Length: 291 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Great book !!

This was a great book about the river and all of its inhabitants. It made me look forward to every bend in the river and the adventures that were ahead. As a person who has traveled to most of the border towns for business, it gave me an even deeper appreciation for the area and the river. It was hard to put down.

Two Worlds and One World

Keith Bowden's account of his 1260-mile journey down the Rio Grande is remarkable on at least two counts. First is simply that he undertook this adventure, the dangers and difficulties of which the typical reader will grow to understand only gradually as the details accumulate. Traveling by bicycle along the shallow, rocky upper reaches of the river then switching to canoe as soon as possible, Bowden spent seventy days making his way down the entire Texas-Mexico border, beginning at El Paso, where the river is a toxic trickle, proceeding southeastward through numerous hazardous rapids and uncharted weir dams, through the forbidding Big Bend country and the deceptive expanses of Lakes Amistad and Falcon, finally passing Brownsville into the broad estuary where the river meets the Gulf of Mexico. Bowden does not belabor the point, but the reader comes to realize that just surviving the river is an accomplishment, especially through many a sparsely populated region where no one would be likely to come across an injured or immobilized canoeist. Despite Bowden's sometimes self-deprecating narration, clearly the journey is harrowing at points and could have ended prematurely and badly. In addition to negotiating the river, however, Bowden must also deal with the occasional humans, who, of one nationality or the other, yet come in a variety of ethnicities, intentions, and attitudes--from the many Mexican villagers who wish to be helpful, to probable smugglers who come uncomfortably close, to Mexicans who cross the river in both directions with little if any sense of national boundaries, to the U.S. Border Patrol agents who may on occasion be officious but who mostly are friendly and solicitous. Bowden's second major accomplishment is to have written so illuminating and powerful a book. The journey itself was part of a personal odyssey undertaken for reasons that, fortunately, Bowden is not too reticent to explain, for they are moving and they resonate throughout the book. Through most of The Tecate Journals, however, Bowden's writing style is reportorial and frequently admirably understated. He does not commit attempted sociology or political commentary. Worthwhile insights, however, are implicit throughout the book. One might note, for example, that Bowden himself violates the border innumerable times, as he camps nightly on whichever side of the river offers the better site (or, frequently, on islands of indeterminate nationality), as he often treks into Mexican villages for supplies, and as he often lands on Mexican soil just to pass the time of day with people he sees there. Nor does he have difficulty entering U.S. towns from the river. He offers no conclusions about his own conduct, and the book as a whole makes such considerations seem silly. From his excursions, however, flow numerous vignettes, usually understated but often laden with humor and humanity, of the people he encounters and their varying attitudes toward the river as barrier,

Adventure on the Border

Keith Bowden's "The Tecate Journals" narrates an archetypal journey on the Rio Grande from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico. Bowden, an avid river rafter, pits his skills against a river filled with unknown boulders, rock slides, weir dams, steep rapids. The weather, replenishing supplies, finding a place to camp each night present other challenges. "The Tecate Journals" is a quick and easy read that flows like the river. As a denizen of the border for twenty years, I learned a few things I didn't know. The infamous salt cedars along the banks suck up 300 gallons of water a day. And the Mariscal Canyon at the tip of the Big Bend has rock walls 1600 feet high, as high as two Empire State Buildings. Most of all, Bowden has captured what the border itself is like, not just the violence, the illegal immigration, the rawness, but the beauty of the Big Bend, the hospitality of the Mexican peasants in remote areas, the helpfulness of our Border Patrol. I often refer to la frontera as the Twilight Zone, the worst of both countries. The Mexican Border is a karmic place which tests what a person really is and what he or she can become. Bowden's journey is not just classic "man vs. nature," and potentially "man vs. man," but truly "man vs. himself." As the journey progresses, the Rio draws Bowden into a meditative state, a oneness with the world much like the Buddhist nirvana. "The Tecate Journals" is an adventurous narrative, a must read for anyone who canoes and rafts. Most of all, Bowden understands our southern border, its culture and its people, a world that all Americans need to know.

International? OUR country!

The Rio Grande River defines the southern border of the United States. How many of its citizens really know anything about it, except possibly that lone fact? We are now daily facing reports of illegal immigration, and the occasional reports of drug flow, involving this specific geographic boundary. Travel with the author as he describes a truly unique journey that is interesting by itself, but is of great importance to all Americans, north and south. Those who harbor love for great river adventure, this is for you, too. An account truly worthy of attention, and praise.

Down the Rio Bravo!

Keith Bowden's years of living, working (teaching) and playing (baseball in the Mexican league) out of Laredo have resulted in this first terrific first book, an account of his mostly solo canoe trip the entire navigable length of the Rio Grande to the sea. With the channel blocked upstream from Big Bend National Park by tamarisk/salt cedar and barbwire fence, Bowden and a buddy mountain-biked that stretch mostly on the Mexican side. Bowden's writing is classic clear journalistic exposition, no-frills straightforward depiction of events and experience. While history, allusion and analysis is kept to a minimum in favor of things done and things seen, the book does benefit from Bowden's life experience on the river and life-long interests especially in the Mexican side of the river. This opens up and supplements the day-to-day account of the trials of navigating rapids and man-made dangers (the Border Patrol, dams, slums, pollution, the threat of violence from drug smugglers, etc.) and provides useful perspective, balancing out the sensationalistic slaughter we've probably all read in newspapers (which is otherwise the only regular news from the border) with Bowden's encounters and affection for the ordinary working people attempting to live on or cross the border. That's the best thing about this fine book: Bowden's fresh and sort of fearless determination (proceeding apace in spite of his own misgivings at not being the best canoeist, along with all the bad news, all the gloom thrown his way by well-meaning friends and officious officials trying to discourage him from his trip) provides for a first-hand witness to the great natural glories of the region and the river (not all of which are confined to the national park, by any stretch) and the generous human spirit of people whose lives are divided along that line. Plus, if we're not up to the 1,300 mile river journey ourselves just yet, this book's the next best thing!