The sky was the sort of blue I thought only existed in spaghetti Westerns and the cacti were fat and comicbook. Symbols of Texas’s glorious oil-bearing history flew past the window like nodding donkeys now defunct but beautiful, in a rusty sort of way.

In Los Ebanos, a tiny town comprising gun shop, grocery store and one freakishly tall cactus, we found Los Ebanos Ferry – the only hand-pulled ferry in America. It carries three cars and takes four men to pull it across the 30m-wide Rio Grande. It’s charming as hell – but makes an absolute mockery of US Border Control. One man simply waded across from the Mexican riverbank to the American side to fish (maybe illegal trout tastes better?).

But Los Ebanos Ferry had sprung a leak that day; its last, in fact. Juan, the operator, told us it hadn’t done more than three days’ straight service in the past year because it was so full of holes. Instead, we approached the lone grocery store for a snack, but were put off by the sign saying ‘We don’t call 911’. This motto was painted on a machine gun nailed to the wall. We moved on.

Grumbles of thunder and concrete skies greeted us the next morning, and over a Denny’s Diner breakfast (that’s blueberry pancakes, steak, eggs and coffee for £3), we decided it was time to hit the beach. South Padre Island, a sandy spit off Texas’s Gulf coast, was only another 120km down the highway, where a giant causeway drops visitors. South Padre is the type of place that seethes with students celebrating their Spring Break, then breathes a huge sigh of relief once the frat parties have gone – if residents could retract the bridge in low season, I’m sure they would.

The Sunday Times Travel Magazine - January

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BACKGROUND

• Drive me crazy in New Mexico

• Cross the Yukon on an Alaska road trip

• Highway threatens remote Mexican tribe

• Off-roading in Argentina

• Three of France's best drives

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• Drive me crazy in New Mexico

They’re an unassuming bunch: a happy family of bohemian empty nesters who’ve set up B&Bs; elderly ‘snowbirds’ fleeing freezing Wisconsin; and wind-burned kitesurfers who can let rip on the empty beaches. The average high in February is 22ºC, so we ate shrimp on the veranda of Blackbeard’s Grill and walked the dunes barefoot. Pelicans and herons sat blithely on wooden fenceposts, flapping up into the wind only once Dad’s camera came out.

TACOS AND TRAILER PARKS: SOUTH PADRE TO MATAMOROS

To get into Mexico from South Padre Island meant driving back to Brownsville on the mainland and crossing from there.

This time, we ditched the Pontiac and crossed into Matamoros by foot, just as easily as we had before. For 45p, Sergio took us in his white van to Matamoros’s market square. As soon as we buckled up, he asked if we knew Jon Lord.

‘Jon Lord?’

‘Si, si. Jon Lord. The keyboard player for Deep Purple?’

Jon Lord was an Englishman; we were Englishmen; so, naturally, we must know him. I noticed a photo on Sergio’s dashboard, next to the obligatory crucifix – it was Jon Lord.

‘I love his music. I was chucked out of school because I was always playing Deep Purple on my Walkman.’

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