Border Bike Trip

Grant arrives at the Gulf of Mexico, where the bird-watchers are unimpressed.

Between McAllen and Brownsville, only a river separates the U.S. from a war zone.

There hasn’t been a drop of rain on this entire trip, but I woke up in Rio Grande City to find sheets of water coming out of the sky. South Texas’s prayers have been answered. Cattle ranches won’t have to sell off cows, and all the onions, cabbage, and corn I’ve passed will make it from farm to…

A distinctive border city.

Grant hears tales of danger about traversing the unforgiving border as he bikes an unforgiving stretch.

A chance meeting with Keith Bowden, writer of "The Tecate Journals."

Getting to know Sanderson, Texas, through the way it celebrates Easter.

After sleeping in a ditch on US 385, Devon and I biked 30 miles to Marathon, Texas. It was a short distance, and Devon was as cheery to get on the road as he had been the entire trip: "Dude, every day there's a new pain that makes me forget about the old pain." If Devon has taught me anything, it's…

Big Bend National Park is a tough sell because there isn't any one scene or location that's especially notable or so beautiful that it deserves to be your desktop background. But the park does have an overall effect on people that keeps them coming back year after year. I said in the previous entry…

Big Bend National Park is one of the largest, most biologically diverse parks in the country—and you've probably never heard of it. Stuck all by its lonesome in the bendy part of southwest Texas, along 118 miles of the Rio Grande river, Big Bend is famously isolated and inaccessible. Out of all the…

Life has become immeasurably better since one of my very best friends Devon Powley rode into town, ready to bike with me through the toughest section of this whole trip: Big Bend National Park. He flew from Washington, D.C. to El Paso, took a train to the neighboring town of Alpine, and finally a…

The road from Van Horn to Marfa, Texas, is unbelievably boring. I woke up from a night in a highway motel that involved multiple trips to the McDonalds next door and A Perfect World on cable, and went straight back to—you guessed it—McDonalds. Holding my second McGriddle in one hand and my phone in…

After a whirlwind visit to Casas Grandes and Colonia Juarez on the Mexican side I crossed back into El Paso late Friday night to pick up my bike from the mechanic. I still had a few hours of daylight, so I set off immediately for Clint, Texas, a small farming town 20 miles outside El Paso. It was…

"Are you a missionary?" one of my fellow passengers asked. It was a pretty smart bet. We were bumping along on a bus ride south from Ciudad Juarez, and I was headed to Nueva Casas Grandes, a tiny town that looks big in comparison to its neighbors Colonia Juarez and Colonia Dublan, the last two…

El Paso, Texas

We ended up staying in Ciudad Juárez a third night in order to attend a political rally for presidential candidate Maria de Jesus Patricio Martinez, better known as “Marichuy.” The University of Ciudad Juarez hosted the event in a large lecture hall. There was standing room only for the students…

We arrived in Janos late in the afternoon and parted ways with Sanchez, the truck driver who gave us a lift, after a quick dinner of enchiladas and steak. As the sun was setting we biked a few miles outside of town to a nature preserve, called Janos Biosphere Natural Reserve, where a group of…

Yesterday we biked from Cananea to Agua Prieta. The hospitality we’ve been shown throughout the trip has been legendary, but our connection in Agua Prieta beats all. Remember the stranger we met in the gas station in Cananea who escorted us into town? His name was Luis Ramirez and he connected us…

Northern Mexico is everything Cormac McCarthy promised it would be. The landscape has taken a Western turn ever since we left the border town, Nogales. On two-lane roads we passed rolling fields of blonde grass and gnarled black trees. The asphalt frequently gave way to dirt and rocks, leaving us…

We're in Nogales, Mexico, a large border city south of Tucson, Arizona. Jon crossed onto our side of the border last night with a new bike. The band is back together again, and the recent Kia Sorento unpleasantness has been resolved.

March 23, 1994—Luis Donaldo Colosio, the leading candidate in Mexico's upcoming presidential election, is about to deliver a speech at a rally in Tijuana. It is assumed he will easily win. Loud music is playing. Colosio is being jostled forward by the crowd. They are chanting his name, excited to…

Every time I’ve taken a bus ride (i.e. Greyhound) I’ve felt the need to write about the experience. Today, we’re taking a bus from Sonoyta to Santa Ana, an even smaller town farther south. ...

Last night we slept in the desert. We dug a pit in the sand for a fire, and desecrated the surrounding brush for wood. This was probably against the rules, it being a national park and all, and we each feel terribly guilty. But the hot dogs were delicious, wrapped in tortillas with refried beans…

The plan was to leave Puerto Penasco today and bike to Sonoyta, a border town 60 miles north. The road in between is smooth, lightly traveled, and has a generous shoulder on both sides. The only problem was the wind, which pushed directly against us and picked up speed the further we pedaled on the…

All of the different states in Mexico have their own identity, even more so than our United States, I'm told. Today was our first full day of biking in the state of Sonora, and it's a drastic change from Baja, California. Sonora is rural, and today we passed endless fields of cotton, alfalfa, and…

Last night we joined two of Davi's friends for beers at a local brewery. Both women are now full-time residents of Mexicali, but living in the border town for the sake of their engineering careers in the United States. Special SENTRI passes allow them to commute back and forth every day. We woke up…

We spent an unexpectedly luxurious night in Bosques del Condor, a rustic campground in La Rumorosa (translation: "the one who tells rumors," because of the wind that blows and whispers through the canyon). When the sun goes down here the temperature plunges immediately, and we were relieved to find…

Before biking into Tijuana, we took a tour of the San Ysidro border crossing, the busiest land crossing in the world. Two agents at Customs and Border Protection generously came into work early to show us what they do day to day. At 7 a.m. the place was already a parking lot, packed with traffic…

My life is entirely in the hands of near strangers and new acquaintances. On other bike trips I’ve traveled with close friends, but this time it’s an army of mercenaries. Yesterday and today all those hired deckhands came together to push this trip out of drydock. We arrived in Tijuana early this…

We arrived in San Diego late last night and took an Uber to the International Travelers House, our hostel accommodations for as long as we’re in the city. It’s a collection of brightly colored beach homes right in the heart of downtown San Diego, and its costing us $44 a night instead of the $209…

"I'm Grant Wishard, a journalist at The Weekly Standard, and I plan to bike the entire U.S. Mexico border, from Tijuana, Mexico to Brownsville, Texas, starting January 17th." Yes, you read that right. Currently I'm in JFK airport waiting for a connecting flight to San Diego International. The…