It’s like having your cake and eating it, too! Residents and tourists on Padre Island and in the Valley can enjoy the indulgences of modern life in growing cities. Yet, if they want to take a step into the past to arrest the tempo of contemporary living, they can cross the border into Mexico’s picturesque towns and villages. These border towns are the gateways to the great Mexican cities of Monterrey, Saltillo, Guadalajara, Mexico City and other interior points. Visits to the border cities are uncomplicated by red tape. Short stops are necessary at customs offices at both sides of the river.

Across the Rio Grande from Brownsville is one of the largest border towns, MATAMOROS, a wealthy metropolis of one hundred thousand people. Here, there is a beautiful modern residential section. THE FRENCH OPERA HOUSE was built a century ago at the whim of Empress Carlotta, during the French occupation of Mexico. The unusual floor was constructed to be tilted so all could see the stage, or levelled when the building served as a ballroom. As one moves off the International Bridge at Matamoros, the elaborate mansions of the Mexican cotton and oil barons dominate the landscape with their architectural blends of ultra modern and traditional Spanish design. Hundreds of curio shops invite the tourists to buy anything from a live goat to a five hundred dollar pair of boots. As in many Mexican cities, the life of the community throbs around the market place, which is afire with color. There is always activity, with strolling musicians and romantic couples. Higher than any of the other buildings, the ancient cathedrals tower mystically over the town’s gaiety. In Matamoros are diversions distinctly different from any of those in the United States; exciting cockfights, famous matadors performing in the Plaza de Toros; there are concerts, attractive night clubs with excellent entertainment, restaurants serving wildgame dinners. A menu, in some of the border night clubs, for a tab of about two dollars per person, includes venison, cabrito (young goat), quail, wild duck, white-wing dove, guacamole salad, beans, fried rice and hot peppers. Then there are traditional promenades of young people in the plaza too. An afternoon at a bullfight is an unforgettable mixture of tradition and fearful thrills as matadors of Mexico and Spain compare thrusts.

PROGRESSO AND NUEVO PROGRESSO are immediately south of the Valley cities of Mercedes and Weslaco. Here cafes and curio shops beckon the tourists. A few miles to the south the city of RIO BRAVO, with its dirt streets and primitive peoples, offers a glimpse into a way of life that is rapidly vanishing.

REYNOSA is situated across the river at a point opposite McAllen, and is noted for its gay night life. From here the visitor may visit romantic Monterrey, Mexico, just three hours away over a modern paved highway. In Reynosa’s central market places are examples of native crafts from all parts of Mexico; famous ceramics of Guadalajara and Puebla, painted gourd bowls and fantastic masks from Michoacan, beautiful hand-woven serapes and stoles and beautifully wrought guitars and other musical instruments from the little villages in the highly isolated wooded areas. On Sundays and special holidays bullfights are also staged.