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Monday, October 22, 2001 - Rio Bravo del Norte
61 miles. Arrey, NM to Siesta RV Park, La Mesilla, NM
We arose at 6 a.m., an hour before dawn.
It was pleasantly cool compared to the previous dawn and as we broke camp we
noticed a honking sound on the eastern horizon. It was a series of flocks
of many hundreds of Canadian Geese migrating down the river valley. They
were on the other side of mountains on the across the reservoir and became
visible at a break in the ridge line. This went on for up to an hour
before the flying circus was over.
Then it was off down the broad Rio Grande River valley.
The first 20 miles are thru fields of alfalfa, cotton, pecans and ripe red chili
peppers. All this agriculture is due to the beneficence of the Rio Grande.
In fact chilies are the predominant crop here. They litter the roadside at
harvest and as we passed several processing and drying factories the piquant
scent of chilies wafted over the roadway. They really love their peppers
here. You can buy big bags of them in the stores and they are ubiquitous
in the Mexican Food.
The Border Patrol was in evidence frisking down a
suspect. We pedaled past Arrey, Derry, Garfield and Salem, all small
farming communities and into Hatch, NM (pop. 1,136) which is the big kahuna in
the area, for a restaurant breakfast and discovered that Hatch claims to be the
Chili Pepper Capitol of the World. I would not dispute the claim.
We then left Hatch for the 40 mile run down the river
to Las Cruces. The riding was easy today with the downward gradient
of the valley and the wind was a wash since it was a crosswind all day, no harm,
no foul. We got into Las Cruces in three hours having passed thru Radium
Springs and at one point were easily doing 16 MPH over a measured mile. It
is great to be able to ride like that after all the mountains of the past few
weeks.
In Las Cruces we stocked up with food since the larder
was bare and bought more sunscreen. It is getting difficult to find since
the high sun time has passed. We still consider it high sun season and
will continue to support the industry.
And a final point about this entry's title; I
have often felt that the Mexican name for the Rio Grande, i.e. Rio Bravo del
Norte, is better and more descriptive than our nom de plume. For Americans
it makes less sense since the river is to our south but it says something about
the character of such a small river in volume of flow that it has two such
laudatory names. Without it Hatch, NM would not be Chili Pepper Capitol of
the World.
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