Odometer: 108,977
7:40 getting up. 8:20 on the road again on Hwy 10 east along the Mexican border. El Paso is huge but a typical border town – a lot of favelas and big industrial plants. Also, what we have seen north of town already, are cattle collection places – a very sad and tryst sight. At nearly 80mph we follow Hwy 10 to Van Horn, then Hwy 90 to Marfa and finally Hwy 67 to Presidio located on the Rio Grande. What we had seen so far are desert, cactuses and some mountains as well as a few antelopes along the cows. The Rio Grande is more a Rio Piccolo – not really what we expected. Scenic route 170 is leading in a roller coaster like manner along the river. The vegetation here comprises mostly of cactuses and ahead of us we see some impressive mountains. Marco likes the scenery a lot. For my part I have to say that I have seen enough of the desert for a while, I’m looking forward to some greener landscape again. On driving out of Big Bend National Park we at least/last see two road runners.

Following SR385 we get to Marathon, where we just pass through and drive on another 54 miles to Sanderson, a village with a population of 800. Arriving there after more than 450 miles we look around for motels and restaurants. Motels we see about 3, restaurants not one (that we would dare entering). So, what other choice do we have than driving another 120 miles to Del Rio? We guess that we should have daylight for one more hour. Thanks to Marco’s concentrated and speedy driving we reach Del Rio 1.5 hours later. It’s already 8:45 and we are tired, so we take the special offer from Ramada Inn for USD 49 without checking out the room first. Well, never rely on a name – we share the room with ants, it smells, on the hallway we see cockroaches and I first have to fix toilet. Too tired to complain we stay and have a mediocre dinner at the in house restaurant, before hitting the pillows.