WEST TEXAS, EL PASO: THE WALL, THE ZOO, AND ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH

December 30, 2018

We spent our last day-and-a-half in West Texas in El Paso, population 681,728, the 22nd largest city in the United States. It is just across the border from Ciudad Juárez, which is about twice its size.

We returned to El Paso from the wilderness (aka Big Bend National Park and Marfa) in the early afternoon with just enough time to squeeze in a few sights before the night fell.

BORDER WALL

With El Paso and Ciudad Juárez separated by what is not much more than a creek, the border wall is a prominent feature in the city. Some kind of wall has been here for decades. We had a great view of the El Paso border wall from the freeway that runs alongside it. It was interesting to look at this and think of all the political turmoil it has caused over the years, and then to think back on the open border in Big Bend National Park.

EL PASO ZOO
Our first stop was the El Paso Zoo, a small operation that covers just 35 acres and includes 220 species. In spite of its small size, however, we were impressed with its animal collection and enclosures.

Here are a few of my favorites. The Mexican gray wolf, which is extinct in the wild:

The golden lion tamarin (an endangered species):

 A rhinoceros iguana, named Fido because he is so tame:

 . . . and his cousin, the cotton-top tamarin, which is critically endangered:

The Colonel Nikolai Michailovitch Przewalski wild horse, named after a famous Russian explorer and naturalist, is also called the Mongolian wild horse. These two are brothers who were born in the Minnesota Zoo:

A sleepy Malayan tiger, also critically endangered:

One of the exhibits Bob was most excited about was the African painted dogs, also an endangered species. We were fortunate to see painted dogs in the wild in Botswana in 2018:

We spent a l-o-n-g time looking at these critters.

 I always appreciate some fun animal art at a zoo.

CATHEDRAL OF ST. PATRICK

We try to visit the most important church in any place we visit, and in El Paso, that appears to be the Cathedral of St. Patrick, the mother church for almost 700,000 Catholics, or 80% of the total population of the diocese.

Ground was broken for this Byzantine-Romanesque church in 1912, and it was dedicated 5 1/2 years later. It was named "St. Patrick's" by a group of Irish Catholic women who raised the first $10,000 for its construction, thereby winning the right to name it.

 The church, which has a high vaulted ceiling, can seat about 800 people.

This isn't a great photo, but imagine that you can see an 8-foot statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus under that canopy, which is topped with a golden eagle.

The cathedral has beautiful stained glass that focuses on the life of Christ. The windows were made in St. Louis and Munich, Germany, and installed in 1929. These two depict the Presentation of Jesus and the Nativity (I want to flip them, don't you?)

The child Jesus with Joseph and Mary shows Jesus building a cross, and Jesus in the temple has Joseph and Mary in the background:

The Last Supper has an ominous crucifixion in the background, and the Garden of Gethsemane shows "the bitter cup" in the angel's hand:

The Empty Tomb is not so empty, and the Crucifixion shows Mary and John the Beloved at the base of the cross. (Again, pictures are reversed.)

There were other windows in a much more modern style, such as this one depicting the miracle at Cana, but I prefer the more traditional and more elaborate windows.

I liked the baptismal font, held aloft by four marble pillars.

. . . and this Mary chapel, with a depiction of the Virgin of Guadalupe, whose shrine we had seen earlier in the year in Mexico City.

Coming up: El Camino Real