Bubump.

My dad had not apparently realized that I was almost scared to death sitting in the back of our rented SUV.

It was Day Three of our long trip to Big Bend National Park. On Sunday (Day Two), my dad had gone to the Visitor Center and asked for good places.

The ranger there told us several beautiful spots: Ernst Tinaja, Grapevine Springs, and the Santa Elena (we were going river rafting there).

Ernst Tinaja was in the middle of nowhere, possible 8 to 9 miles out from the park road. But then again, the whole park was over 300 miles from civilization in the first place.

The car started slumping down a steep slope. There was not really any road to grip to; just dirt. Every three seconds I felt we were not on a road.

The tiny road had only one lane, so at first I thought it was one-way. But when I read a very old sign “TWO-WAY ONE-LANE ROAD. YEILD TO ALL CARS COMING THE OPPOSING DIRECTION” I started getting afraid.

Sure enough, we heard a rumble and ad honk from the distance. A truck. My dad slid to the very side of the road quite precariously. The truck whizzed past us, spurring dirt and dust.

The GPS was extremely confused as well. Since we didn’t know where we were going, we had set the GPS in the direction of the Rio Grande Village. On the road to it, however, my dad had suddenly decided to take this.

“Drive 49 miles. Then make U-turn.” 49 miles? I scrolled the GPS until I found where the GPS was talking about: a T-intersection with an equally small road running 30 miles to the park road.

But just as all hope was lost, I saw a little campsite on the GPS. It was in small letters, but I could see it all the clearly: Ernst Tinaja.

Good ol’ GPS, the thing we could rely on.

Pretty soon, we saw the tiny sign, “E.T.” We joked and called it ET’s landing site, but then Matt pointed out that ET had landed in the forest.

We were all calm now and all happy now that we knew we weren’t going into the land of nowhere.

What made us even happier was when I saw that there were three cars parked there. Apparently we weren’t the only ones going to (now not so much of) this crazy place.

We walked in, and immediately…

The view was incredible. Once in the shade, it was cool and dry, except for on the bottom, where a pool of water laid, practically making this an oasis.

I played around with Matt, jumping up and going down. I threw some rocks into the pool too, and it sounded deep.

There was a place in Ernst Tinaja which I named “Bunk Beds” because of the sheer fact that the next level was protruding outwards, so that the ‘bed’ on the bottom was protected.

My dad told us to move forward like a Toyota, so we did. It turned out Ernst Tinaja wasn’t a trail, or a viewpoint, or anything like that. It was more of a piece of do-whatever-you-want land. Some people went to the left, but we went forward.

Finally, there was a shallow cliff. It looked as if one could easily climb it, but it turned out to be so slippery that I slid down after trying to climb up. Finally, we decided this was the end of Ernst Tinaja.

As we left Ernst Tinaja, we weren’t afraid when a park ranger came and saluted us as he snugly passed us. We actually felt even more secure.

Ernst Tinaja was a hidden Big Bend wonder, and seeing as how the road was, it would remain one.

Good thing we rented a SUV.