Stumbling upon the tracks of Pancho Villa: Columbus, NM

 

Already a day later, now in Tombstone, AZ. The internet has been spotty and I'm a bit behind now. 

Tuesday, March 19

We've arrived in Bisbee, AZ after driving for about three hours from Columbus yesterday. The change of scenery is quite drastic, from the wide open arid plains around the small border town – a village, really - in the south of New Mexico to this former copper mining town crammed into the steep hills of southern Arizona with its many beautifully restored and artistically decorated houses from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Given the choice where I'd rather be I think I'd opt for Columbus – but that might well have a lot to do with the place we stayed.

'Welcoming', I wrote at the end of the last entry, and that first impression lasted until our departure. 'Los Milagros', a small adobe hotel built 35 years ago, is beautiful with its warm colours and lovingly and tastefully chosen Mexican decorations. This still wouldn't make it more than a really nice place to stay, however, if it hadn't been complemented with the personable and helpful owner, Philip, who was waiting for us in the cozy lobby area when we arrived. He checked us in and promised coffee from about 6:30 the next morning, suggested we might cross the border on foot the next day to visit Palomas, the small Mexican town on the other side. There is no place to eat in Columbus on weekends, so that alone would have warranted taking his advice.

Columbus is at the intersection of state highways 9 (the one we came on) and 11, coming from Deming in the north, but there is not much traffic for the most part, and it is very quiet. What a nice change from the bigger, bustling places where we stayed the last few nights!

I awoke to the wonderful smell of fresh coffee the next morning: Philip had kept his promise! I found him sitting in the same big leather chair where he had awaited us the night before and joined him for a chat, sipping the best coffee I had since I left home. We again talked about the border crossing, and Philip suggested he'd take us there and would explain where we had to go and what we needed to do: it takes only five minutes to get there, so no big deal, he said. Hiking opportunities are not so plentiful in the area, but only a block from the hotel is Pancho Villa State Park. While the name Pancho Villa sounded familiar we had no clear idea who that was, but we were about to find out: the state park is mostly a generously laid out RV park, but it also features a very interesting museum about a few years during the time of World War I when Columbus was a small but important part of American history.

We walked over mid-morning to check it out and were quite surprised at the wealth of information we found there. The biggest part of the exhibits dealt with Pancho Villa's raid of Columbus in March of 1916. Pancho Villa was a Mexican revolutionary, the northern counterpart to southern Mexico's Emilio Zapata. In the early hours of March 9, 2016, Villa with about 400 to 500 men came across the border, raided Columbus and engaged in battle with the US regiment stationed there. It came as a total surprise, and about 8 or 9 soldiers and 6 or 8 civilians (accounts vary) were killed before the army recovered from the surprise and mounted a counterattack, driving the Mexicans back across the border. Villa claimed the raid a success nevertheless: they captured about 300 horses and also weapons.

We watched a video at the museum with several accounts of women who had witnessed the event as young kids, talking about hiding in the shrubbery, bullets flying over their heads, a young mother hiding under her bed with her two infants, stuffing the corner of a pillow case in her baby daughter's mouth to keep her from making a sound, footage of charred buildings and mayhem.

In reply to this attack president Woodrow Wilson ordered Brigadier General “Black Jack” Pershing to assemble forces for a punitive expedition into Mexico to route the revolutionaries. They penetrated more than 500 kilometres into Mexico and were successful in squashing the revolutionaries, but they didn't find Pancho Villa himself.

There is a lot more that is connected with these events, for instance something we had no idea about: Germany was involved in some way, too, by supporting the Mexican revolutionary forces.

It is not totally clear either why the US deployed so many troups to go after Villa. One theory is that this was a way to get the US involved in WWI, another that this was the training needed to get them ready to enter.

 The R.V. park at Pancho Villa State Park was well kept, landscaped with all kinds of cacti. 

As promised Philip took us to the border around lunch time. We left our car in a parking lot from where we could walk across. Since we didn't want to be stuck in Mexico because of some passport problem we first checked with a border agent that we had everything we needed: no problem there; he promised they'd let us back in as long as we had our ESTA visa, which we did, of course.

With these news we returned to Philip. He had just finished explaining where we needed to go when a couple walked by on their way to do what we were about to: pay a short visit to Palomas on the other side of the border. Philip, mayor of the town of Columbus, knew the woman, who turned out to be the state representative for this area, and he entrusted us to her care to take us across.

The process really is easy: after briefly looking into my purse the Mexican border agent waved us through, we walked through a turnstyle – and were in Palomas. 

Beautifully carved door in Palomas

Here was a totally different world. The long, dusty main drag was filled with people and rattling cars driving up and down, seemingly the Sunday entertainment since it didn't look like they were really going anywhere or doing anything else but drive up and down mainstreet. We parted ways with our friendly border-crossing helpers: they were headed for the “Pink Store” right at the start of mainstreet for lunch, a store with crafts for sale from all over Mexico with a spacious restaurant attached while we wanted to check out the little town a bit. We found the plaza, not very busy now in the middle of the day, looked briefly into the small catholic church, walked the whole long length of mainstreet, happy to hear Spanish conversations and be in the hustle and bustle of a Mexican town. People seemed not as outgoing as in other areas of Mexico we had travelled in the fall; the border traffic probably makes people a bit leery towards northerners. 

 

Finally we walked towards the northern edge of town. Most of the way from El Paso to Columbus we could see the famous wall, and here we were as close as one can get. We found that it is not a wall but a fence, probably about 10m high and looking quite solid. It's hard to imagine how anyone could make it over. We gazed at it across a school yard which was right next to it. It was incongruous and depressing to see the slides and swings against this backdrop, but as we found out later when we met up with Jennifer and Mark again at the restaurant, the threat from drug smugglers and other criminal elements is very real. Here in Palomas/Columbus it is not so much of a problem, she said, but in more remote areas further west it is quite different.

After spending an enjoyable hour or so with our new aquaintances we crossed back into the US together, again without a hitch – but why should that come as a surprise? Walking across the border for dental or eye care is something very common not only here but also in Yuma/Algodones and probably other places along the border as well. 

We had noticed green fields with irrigation systems along the highway when we drove to the border, and we decided to check this out for our evening walk. I knew from Philip that there is a big onion and chili farmer in the area, and we wondered if these fields might have been planted to onions. When we got there we were surprised to find that these were not onions but grain, in this case barley shortly before the heading-out stage. We didn't think precious water would be used for grain here, but we obviously were mistaken. It would have been interesting to talk to a farmer.