Columbus, New Mexico, Part 6: Going Over to Puerto Palomas

Fictional meeting between Generals Pershing and Villa, Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico

I crossed over to Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico, twice while I was in Columbus, New Mexico.

There's a parking lot right by the border and you can park your car and walk over, which is what I did. By the parking lot is a "duty-free" shop that sells liquor and, I think, perfumes, and I guess tobacco products. A white-haired gentleman chauffeurs parking-lot visitors in a golf cart to and from the duty-free shop. This service is likely due to the average age of most U.S. visitors over the border here, which is to say, 60s and older.

The duty-free shop displays the ubiquitous skull and horns of the Southwest.

The duty-free store by the Columbus, NM and Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua border crossing

You might say that Puerto Palomas is a medical tourism destination, what with Americans going over for cheap prescription drugs, dental work, and eye treatment.

Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico

  

Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico

There's also the much-ballyhooed Pink Store, which houses a restaurant and also a capacious warehouse of Mexican-made products including pottery, glassware, textiles, decorative items, etc. If you're lucky (and I was), a staffer will give you a free drink to enjoy while you browse through the store. I had a margarita.

Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico

Since I no longer acquire things for a home, I had only mild interest in the store's inventory, but I looked nonetheless, sipping my margarita and savoring the salted rim as I went. I admired the light and the color of this display room:

Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico

Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico

 



On my first afternoon in Puerto Palomas, I sat in the shade of the restaurant's patio while I drank a beer and talked with some of the PP regulars, who pop down every Tuesday for lunch and, as needed, drug replenishment.











I did a little exploring of Puerto Palomas beyond the Pink Store. Attended a funeral (noting the license plates of the bereaved not only from Chihuahua, but from Texas and New Mexico). Walked through a plaza. Walked by the border wall a tiny bit. I saw men gathered together and talking, playing a game, perhaps drinking; not much sign of women; vendors selling CDs, hats, sunglasses, street food, offering shoeshines. I saw some rehab work being done to a sidewalk, to a new business. Saw some businesses that had gone defunct.

I felt particularly attracted to an abandoned .. what? Mansion? Hotel? Restaurant? It was intended to be grand, and I was later told that it was to have been a casino, but construction ceased as soon as the drug cartels moved their violent stage to Puerto Palomas for a time. 

Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico

 

Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico

If it had opened, how many people would it have employed directly? How many people would have been employed by suppliers? How many others would have derived indirect economic benefits?

Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico

For now, doves are the only evident residents of the empty, beautiful building.   
















A slide show of Puerto Palomas: