International Ferry at Los Ebanos, Texas

Los Frenos International Port of Entry

The only thing that came to mind as I stood looking at the new port of entry in Los Ebanos was the quote from Paul Newman in the movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Paul Newman is surveying the local bank which has been refortified and he asks, "What happen to the old bank? It was beautiful"
Guard: "people kept robbing it"
Newman: "Small price to pay for beauty"

That's exactly what I thought yesterday as my wife and I rode up to the modernized International Ferry at Los Ebanos, Texas. Talk about a clash of designs, like wearing prints with stripes; or cowboys and aliens; or having a solar powered vette; or sushi at a tailgate party!
The modern beefed up port of entry is about to open and it totally destroys the beauty of the old hand drawn international ferry, the last of its kind in the United States. It looks like it's built to handle lots of traffic, but in reality they only get about 120 to 150 vehicle crossing a day and that's on a good day according to one of the customs officers I talked with.
The new port of entry dwarfs the actual barge that is used to transport cars and pedestrians from Mexico to the the US and back. As a matter of fact, you can't even see the river from the port of entry, at least not from where I was standing. I guess it's not hard to make something good really bad.

Pedestrian Traffic Coming From Mexico

I got past the customs guards as I strolled down towards the river, but was stopped about 50 yards further down at the "Stop" sign and the "Everyone Must Pay Beyond this Point". Even from this point you could only see a piece of the river and the ferry itself was still out of sight beyond the river bank. In my opinion this new and modernized Port of Entry is like Jerryworld (the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium), just too much. Ah, the price of progress! Sad!

Here's the New Port of Entry to the Left of Temporary Entry to Ferry Crossing

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