A Trip to Mos Eisley, er, El Paso

Food, traffic and conversations in an oasis border town

If you’ve ever driven to El Paso, you can feel the weird. Hours and hours from the next nearest city of any size, the “twin cities” of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez really do look like the spaceport Mos Eisley on Tatooine in Star Wars.

The sprawl emerges from the desert like an alien moon base, ten thousand lights twinkling in the dusty gloom. A few at firs…