 Visitors to the lower Texas border in February this year will discover the charm and tradition of Brownsville's Charro Days and it's sister-celebtration, the Sombrero Festival, when the cities of both Brownsville and Matamoros, Mexico - directly across the border - let their hair down and join in a joint, bi-cultural celebration that has thrilled and entertained locals and visitors alike since the early 19th century.While jazz is king in Louisiana and samba reigns supreme in Brazil, neither can match the sheer diversity and variety of music and bi-cultural ambiente of a Charro Days week, bubbling with the festive sounds of traditional mariachis, modern-day Tejano, and the myriad regional Mexican dances.
It all started in the early 1900s when merchants in bustling Matamoros, Mexico, Brownsville's sister city, hearing of American settlers in Texas near the Nueces River, loaded up their wares and dressed up in their traditional costumes to visit and do business. There, the groups met and shared the first bi-cultural celebration on record.
Things haven't changed much since then. In 1937 the Pan American Round Table civic club in Brownsville took the unorganized celebration to a new level, and every since then it has been marked by grand 'across-the-border' parades that start in one city and travel gloriously across the international bridge to the other.
Other festival highlights include music festivals, food fairs, mariachi competitions, dance exhibits, art exhibits, cultural celebrations, special religious services - and out-and-out community celebration.
In fact, there is great culture and great art and great food and great music. Perhaps no place else has captured the charm of two cultures with such perfection as in the twin, sister-cities of Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoras, Mexico.
The annual Charro Days celebration is actually a Fiesta of grand porportion; a celebration of the shared cultures of the unique lower Rio Grande Valley region. At one time, Matamoros - the larger and older city of the two - was the jewel on the Mexican upper Gulf Coast; a center for shipping trade and commerce across the border to the United States.
 Today, Brownsville and Matamoras maintain close ties as trading partners and centers for the transportation of goods and imports traveling in both directions across the international border bridges that connect the two communities. The 2006 Charro Days/Sombrero Fest opens February 19th and runs through the 25th.
If you're looking to enjoy the full culture partnership between Texas and Mexico and wish to celebrate in the warm tropical clime of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, a visit to Charro Days this year would be the perfect remedy for your need for culture, great food and fun music.
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Rio Grande Valley