Tall Tales In Big Bend

Big Bend National Park is wonderfully wild. We explore the natural beauty of the Texan region through stargazing, trail walking and kayaking, among other cultural delights and folklore.

- Kate Hennessy 

I’m two hours from the West Texan town of Marathon when night falls. I jump at tyre scraps that look like armadillos and jackrabbits jump at me, fleeing my headlights for the safety of the inky black. When I enter Marathon it’s so dark and silent I wince as my car door slams. Have I woken any of the 60-odd schoolchildren who live here?

The dark is deliberate. Marathon has earned a “Class 1 dark sky” rating for astronomy and stargazing, which means all of its residents and businesses help to maintain the blackness. The town is close to Big Bend National Park, a rite-of-passage wilderness that most Texans have visited at least once. It encompasses an entire mountain range and sprawls over both sides of the Mexican-American border.

A rock dome in Big Bend called El Solitario is rumoured to be continental USA’s darkest place. El Solitario is 17km across and visible from space — but big things are common around here. At 500 square miles (1300km²), Brewster County alone is larger than some American states.

I’m at the B&B’s co-ordinates but, instead of a house, I step into a greenhouse humid with rose scent. Water tinkles, wisteria tumbles and fairy lights twinkle. Painted in bold oranges, blues, pinks and purples with stairwells leading to arches that frame the high desert plains, Eve’s Garden B&B looks as if it bloomed from a child’s imagination. The bed is real though and I sleep in the way only a seven-hour solo drive can summon.