In the Lone Star State, residents consider themselves Texans first, Americans second. Or so Javier Frutos was told when he and writer Omar Mouallem visited west Texas while on assignment for Canadian Geographic Travel (look for the story in the March 2016 issue of the magazine).

“I was surprised by how much diversity there was,” says Frutos. With the exception of Big Bend National Park, the region is not widely known, and Frutos was happy to discover a variety of microclimates within the arid and semiarid landscape.

Camera in hand, Frutos traversed the region, clocking nearly 2,000 kilometres in five days. Here are a few of the photos he came back with.