Jessica wrote this
Dave Hartley <david@holistiq.com>
http://www.holistiq.com
San Francisco / EastBay, CA (510)776-5914
Subject: Mexico Report
we did end up chewing and swallowing the whole thing. Perhaps "A Really BIG
Bite"? It was definitely a challenge and we were very glad to be coming
home, by the end.
We left Santa Cruz at 6 am on Wednesday the 2nd, in the rain, and after a
car trip, taxi, three planes (four airports), another taxi, and a bus trip,
arrived at about 8:15 pm in El Fuerte in the state of Sinaloa. Our guide
book had advised "savvy travelers" to start the train trip from there
because the scenery between Los Mochis (the western terminus) and El Fuerte
is not scenic, mostly sugar cane fields and a big reservoir. We were
surprised (not sure why) to see lots of Christmas lights on Mexican houses.
On the bus trip from Mochis to El Fuerte, we chatted with a young Mexican
couple whose newish baby was dancing 'La Bamba' with the driver's radio.
They told us El Fuerte would be charming and clean, but not to try to swim,
"muy peligroso," and when we arrived, pointed us in the direction of the
Hotel San Francisco. I could barely understand the mumbled and lispy
Spanish of our possibly tubercular host at the hotel, but we secured a room
facing the lovely, colorful courtyard (birdcages, grapefruit/toronja trees,
and a non functional fountain, all bedecked in more Christmas lights)
-and went out to wander in the dark. I was afraid all the restaurants would be
closed, but we found some delicious chicken mole and enchiladas and of
course a big stack of tortillas.
The TV in our room turned itself on at six am (which we found to be the
standard wakeup call in other hotels) but we shut it up and slept a while
longer. We passed Thursday in El Fuerte, which turned out to be fairly
touristy with an almost Disney feel, but still cute and enjoyable. Saw only
three other gringo couples all day. It was very sunny and about 75 degrees.
Dave found the river Fuerte which indeed had a strong current. All the
yards along the river were growing fruit -- toronjas, papayas, bananas, and
tangerines. A man watching us from the roof of his huge house invited us to
climb up to the top for a better view, and gave us toronjas and naranjitas
(apricot sized tangerines) from his yard. We dutifully visited El Fuerte's
fuerte, and also wandered in the very fancy Hotel Posada del Hidalgo which
had over 50 rooms, apparently all empty, and a hallway museum honoring
Balderama, the tourism impresario who owns all the fancy hotels along the
Chihuahua-Pacific railway line. Sitting in the church we watched pigeons
fly in the side entrance, up to their nest construction project, and out the
nave, repeating the same flight pattern over ten times. We went in search
of more toronjas, but were unable to buy any -- evidently they are so common
in yards that on one would bother to sell them. The matron of the fruteria
donated two pink ones from her home and we bought a pineapple, papaya and
tangerines (which everyone called naranjas, throughout the trip). A young
man at the fruit store told us of his wish to travel to the US to study
English, specifically in Indiana, practiced some English on us, and offered
to deliver more free toronjas to our hotel room. After dinner in El Meson
del General (sopa de mariscos and lobina/bass a la plancha) we sat in in the
central plaza near the zocalo, a gazebo/bandstand which appeared in some
guise in almost every town we visited, but which was quite fancy in El
Fuerte, and slaughtered the pineapple.
On Friday morning we took a taxi to the train station.
We met Natasha and Keith, mochileros/backpackers from Nova Scotia,
who had driven their van all the way down and were leaving it in El Fuerte
(hope it was still there when they got back), and shared chocolate covered
espresso beans with them.
Actual brewed coffee (though weak by Bay Area standards) was available in
the dining car, and we sat and chatted and watched the incredible scenery as
the train gained elevation into the canyons.
From time to time, we watched from the decks in between the cars, although
most of the attempted train photos were a wash.
Our new friends disembarked at Bauhuichivo, a jumping-off point for hikes
into the canyon bottoms. The Copper Canyon train (the Chihuahua-Pacifico)
stops for fifteen minutes at El Divisadero, where the view is spectacular
and a small marketplace is crowded with vendors selling
gorditas (thick fried corn tortillas slit and stuffed with potatoes or
beef), chile rellenos wrapped in flour tortillas, and baskets and weavings
made by local Indians, the Tarahumara. We grabbed food and photos and
rushed back on the train.
More incredible scenery, until we arrived in Creel and found the
hotel that had been recommended by our guide, La Posada de Creel,
with a log cabin-feel room and a gas heater for which we ended up
being very grateful (higher elevation, colder nights). Exploring the hotel,
we found a gringo sunning himself on the porch whom I instantly knew to be
our guide, even though we were supposed to meet him the next day in
Norogachi. Santiago (James Barnaby) lives six months of the year in Montana
and six months in Norogachi, leading wilderness trips -- backpacking,
canyoneering, and pack trips with burros -- in which he employs local
mestizo people and shares local culture. He had promised to take us off the
beaten path. Dear Reader, he certainly did. We made arrangements to meet
him for the bus to Norogachi in the morning, and set off to explore Creel in
the couple of hours of remaining daylight. For a few dollars in pesos, a
tiny local man (drunk, wearing a California Highway Patrol baseball cap)
guided us up a hill to Cristo Rey, a white Christ figure with the best view
in Creel. We lingered there watching huge flocks of buzzards (the State
Bird of Chihuahua?) as the sun went down.
The main task for Saturday morning was to track down the elusive cup of
brewed coffee (from someone's home espresso machine). The bus left Creel at
noon. We had increasingly beautiful views of the Rio Urique as the bus
climbed to higher elevations, and arrived in Roseachi at about three. From
Roseachi it was still an hour and fifteen minute taxi ride to Norogachi, on
a washboard, difficult road, to the home of Martha Espino Garcia, the former
presidente of Norogachi and now hostess of the only guesthouse in Norogachi.
Walking in the arroyo before dinner, we were confident that we had arrived
in the middle of nowhere. Even during Semana Santa, Santiago had informed
us, gringo tourists were needles in a haystack. After sunset we went to the
main plaza in front of the church to watch the Tarahumara perform the
matachine dance, a religious rite performed several times a year: for the
feast day of the Virgen de Guadalupe, December 12; for Christmas; for Dia de
los Reyes, January 6; for Candelaria, February 12; and again in Semana
Santa. We had been advised not to take photos of the dancing, since it is
the equivalent of a church service. Matachine is based on a Spanish dance
and was introduced by conquistadors and carried forward by the indigenous
Tarahumara, melding western and Catholic traditions (such as the timing of
the festivals) with their own religious beliefs. The dance began in the
courtyard of the internado/school next to the church. A double line of
about 20 men on each side, wearing long robes made of folded yards of cotton
fabric with designs showing teddy bears, Santas, RugRats, rainbows, hot air
balloons, ABCs, eagles and American flags -- only the shape of the costume
was traditional. Headbands were made of folded and rolled solid fabrics
fastened by large safety pins. Dancers at the head of the line wore
mirrored headdresses -- boxes of shiny tin, festooned with tinsel Christmas
garlands. The dance itself resembled a low impact Virginia Reel, with a
seemingly endless pattern of shuffling from the end of the line to its head,
punctuated by birdlike cries at prescribed intervals we could not discern.
The dance was accompanied by a small band of guitars, drums, and a lyre-like
instrument. As the dance continued in the courtyard, women and children
gathered in the church, first sitting on pew benches that had been moved up
against the walls, then on the floor in tight family circles. We were told
that people may have walked three or four hours from their homes to this
festival, and were prepared to stay all night. Their traditional skirts and
blouse were made of the same colorful variety of fabric prints, and topped
by a shawl of the same kind of fabric. Many women carried their babies and
small children on their backs inside this shawl. Dave and I were wearing
fleece lined jackets, long pants, wool socks, hiking boots, and wool
mittens, and still felt a little chilled as the heat of the day disappeared.
The women sitting on the stone floor of the church had no socks on, and wore
a variety of flimsy footwear from huaraches tied on the ankle to jellies to
worn, holey tennis shoes. At any given time, there were probably four
hundred people sitting on the floor. Eventually the dance line moved inside
the church, circling first through the courtyard and around the crucifix.
Dancers chuckled as they messed up their steps or as dogs became entwined in
the patterns of the dance. We watched a while from the doorway; from time
to time, women and children would get up and leave, and people would work
their way into the crowd, so eventually we took off our hats and moved
inside. With such a large gathering of Tarahumara people at once, we took
the opportunity to give the gifts we had brought from the States: I handed
out small beads of glass beads, and Dave distributed pocket knives to lucky
boys. Even with over 120 bags of beads, I didn't have enough to give to
everyone who wanted some. The dance continued with only brief breaks. Some
dancers left the line and were replaced by others. When our beads were
gone, after about four hours of watching the dance, we went back to Martha's
to sleep.
At eight am on Sunday, we rose and went back to the church, where the dance
was still going on, seemingly the same number of dancers forming the same
endlessly repeating patterns, though the crowd of seated women and children
had shrunk.
Chickens meandered along the frozen surface of the tiny dry
river which flows through town. We walked up to a plateau above the town
where new buildings were under construction (Dave thought it looked like the
Norogachi Office Park, but we were later informed it was a new school
complex) and looked down over the town of Norogachi, confirming that we were
indeed in the middle of nowhere. On the way back in through town saw the
other part of the local Dia de los Reyes festival still in progress, a
tesguinada in someone's yard. Tesguino is a very weak (3% alcohol) corn
beer that is drunk to show thanks to God for the harvest of corn. The norm
is to drink for two, three, or four days and nights in a row, until the
supply is gone. Evidently these festivals are the only times Tarahumara
consume alcohol. In this tesguinada, both men and women were drinking, as
is customary, although only men participated in the matachine dance, a
smaller group of just two lines of ten or twelve. We were offered a dipper
of tesguino but declined; one of the women invited us in to buy baskets. A
second opportunity to buy artesanias came that afternoon when Santiago
walked with us to the home of Jesusita, a local craftswoman over 80 years
old. They reminisced about Pancho Pali, the local Catholic priest, much
loved by the community, who died recently in an airplane crash. We spent
the rest of the afternoon walking around Norogachi, visiting the cemetery
and climbing up other rock formations, and ended the day with showers using
water from a wood-fired heater.
On Monday, Gabriel's truck came for us at 8 am. Santiago had planned the
trip so that we would be on new trail the whole way (no backtracking).
Gabriel drove us to the trailhead to save us a few hours of less than
scenic hiking. Our first day we hiked from 9:30 to 1:30, along the Rio
Urique, actually exceeding our guide's projected speed, so that we arrived
early at the camp. Still feeling fresh, Dave and I dropped our packs, set
up camp, and explored caves and rock formations in the area.
Across from the camp, we watched Tarahumara women and children herding
goats on the hillside. From time to time, a Tara family would pass on the trail
that ran above the camp, burros laden with firewood or supplies probably
purchased/traded at a town where they had gone for a tesguinada. Our guide
carried a kilo of sugar for most of the trip, trying to be prepared to offer
coffee to visitors (Taras mostly speak Spanish as a second language, and
would not think of drinking coffee without lots of sugar) but none stopped
at the right times, and he ended up gifting the sugar to a friend along the way.
We woke to see our breath frozen on the inside of the tent. Once the sun
came up, it was quite warm again and we set off for a day of arroyo trail,
following the many curves of the river (about five hours that day). The
water was relatively low, so all the crossings this day were accomplished
with boots on (although I did fall in at one point, soaking my butt and
right leg). We stopped near Nararachi at the home of Frederico, a renowned
peyote healer and friend of Santiago's, whom he wanted us to meet, but
almost everyone was in a neighboring town, still drinking. Frederico is
fairly wealthy due to his success as a healer, as evidenced by the home's
solar panels, satellite dish, and clothesline full of drying meat. Simon
Fuentes (Frederico's nephew) was there working on a roof that will be used
in a school building in Nararachi. Santiago informed me that Simon had gone
to San Juanito last fall to be trained as an EMT, and was continuing to
study medicine using the book Donde No Hay Doctor. His real talent lay in
making violins, but he got the medical training at the request of elders in
the community. Simon invited us in for coffee (Nescafe) and chicken mole,
and handmade tortillas de niz tamal, made from fresh ground lime-treated
corn, rather than from prepared masa. He encouraged us to stop in again on
our way home, predicting that Frederico would be back. Later that day, we
stopped to put down our packs and climb up to a cave to see pictographs and
a food storage area. At this stop, we made the acquaintance of Xavier, a
Tara boy of seven or eight on his horse, wearing a Charlotte Hornets purple
sweatshirt.
Xavier pointed to his throat and explained that he couldn't speak -- he was
able to whisper and whistle quite ably though, and asked us
where we were going. We shared pretzels, trail mix, and chocolate with him
(in addition to giving him a pocket knife) and he proceeded to mug for our
camera, fall off his horse and play dead, and round up a cow in a dramatic
show of horsemanship. He told Santiago his parents had gone to the city of
Chihuahua for the winter to work, and he was living with his grandparents.
That night we heard drumming, which Santiago said was traditionally reserved
for tesguinadas during Semana Santa; these days, younger people were less
careful with the Tarahumara traditions.
On Wednesday we hiked for six hours, from 10:30 to 4:30, following the
Urique and then turning on to the Rio Conchos, a wider and deeper river.
We had to do three barefoot crossings, which slowed us down (taking off
and putting on boots) but were wonderfully refreshing to fatigued feet. Our
campsite this night, in an area called Guahochi, was right next to the
river, across from a "hot springs" coming out of the cliff. Dave and I were
starting to tire of trail food (dried corn chowder mix, thickened with
pinole, a Tarahumara specialty of ground toasted corn, which they eat as a
thin gruel in water) and trail coffee, and I was starting to crave a shower.
The first task when setting up camp was always to build a fire and start
boiling water to purify it. We cooked and ate and kept boiling more water
all evening, quite ready for the 8:30 bedtime every night.
In the morning, when the sun came over the hill and warmed our campsite, we
bathed using the "hot springs," which fell into a catchment basin by the
cliff. The agua caliente was really only agua tibia, but mixed with
campfire-boiled water, produced an acceptable hair washing and shave.
Thursday was a short hiking day, only about three hours on the trail: first
we went to La Junta, to the home of Rosa, a 100-year old friend of
Santiago's, whom he hadn't visited for two years. From the hill over her
home, he could see smoke from the chimney, a good indication that she might
still be alive. When we got there, she was indeed alive although she told
us she had taken to her bed 14 months ago and not gotten up since, as she
could no longer eat tortillas and had no fuerza left to move around.
Mentally she was very sharp. She gave a dissertation on the decline of
youth culture in neighboring towns, due to use of marijuana and cocaine.
Her caretaker, a younger woman from the city of Cuahtemoc, served us Nescafe
and Marias and asked if we weren't afraid to be hiking in the area, due to
the many snakes found in the river, some as big around as her head. (For
the record, we saw one snake during the entire trip, in the canyon bottom
town of Urique, which was the size of a chopstick and only half as long.)
After Rosa's, we moved on to visit Nararachi, where Santiago particularly
wanted to show us the village church, with its altar painted with sun and
peyote symbolism. The door was "locked" with a piece of twine and for some
reason our guide did not want to undo it and go inside (which he did do at
another church later in the hike). We were still able to see the painting
of the altar and the corables, through the window. The highlight of
Nararachi was the extremely well stocked tienda, where we were able to buy
fresh food -- potatoes, eggs, onions, tomatoes, Mennonite cheese, and
chilaqua chiles (the fairly mild kinds used for chile rellenos). That
night's dinner of fried potatoes seemed like a feast. First, however, we
dropped our packs, set up camp, and Dave and I set off in search of water,
with all the available containers. We had to walk quite a ways upstream to
find water deep enough to scoop, when I spied an object floating on its
surface. "Please let that be a piece of wood," I asked Dave. He looked and
said "You really want it to be a log, don't you?" Upon poking it with a
stick, there was no question: it was a skinned, decomposing cow's head. We
walked a bit further upstream and tried not to think too hard about the
water. After boiling and iodizing, it really didn't taste scary.
Our guide warned us that Friday would be a hard day, and we needed an
earlier start in order to get to the campsite he wanted to reach. After our
coldest night camping, we were on the trail by nine, and climbed up and out
of Nararachi and back down to Frederico's home. This time, the curandero
was at home, sunning himself on the east side of his house. We visited with
him and Simon's wife for about an hour, drinking Nescafe, eating tortillas,
and chewing on dried beef from the clothesline. Then we hit the trail
again, for a hard four and a half hours up and down (mostly up) to cross the
mesa, to our highest elevation campsite (about 2300 meters). The sierra
winds were blowing that day, and when we took off our packs to rest, our
sweaty backs got quite cold. At one summit resting point, Santiago told us
the story of Rita, a Tarahumara woman who wandered away from her people
walked across the border into the States, and was found in the 80s walking
around somewhere in Kansas, where she was thought to be speaking gibberish,
put in a mental institution, and run through regimens of psychotropic drugs.
Somehow after several years, someone realized she was speaking Tarahumara,
and she was released back to her hometown, permanently damaged by side
effects from medications. A lawsuit was brought against the hospital
because at the beginning of Rita's institutionalization, some doctor from
that area of Mexico had written in her chart "Perhaps she is speaking
Tarahumara?" and this possibility was never pursued. Santiago had worked
with a documentary photographer doing a film on Rita's story and her family,
and in the course of their work, they discovered that the reason Rita had
left her people in the first place was that she had gone some kind of crazy
(supposedly from eating a combination of herbs and ground human bones) and
killed her husband. This was not revealed until after the lawsuit was
settled.
We thought we would never reach the campsite that day. Clouds were moving
in, threatening rain, and the wind was blowing Minnesota-cold. About half a
mile from where we were to camp, we had to stop and scoop water and carry it
the rest of the way, with now wet hands. At this point, Dave and I realized
we were crazy to be on this trip. The specialty of the day was goat water
with a generous side of burro, but it was the only water around. Santiago
started a fire in a large cave, trying to get out of the wind, and started
the daily ritual of boiling water. Dave and I were exhausted, but we were
also determined not to be cold -- and especially not wet and cold -- that
night, so we set up the tent inside a cave across the river.
The corn chowder/pinole mix was enlivened with the last of the tomatoes and
chilaquas, and I think anything hot would have been delicious that night. I
think that was the night that our guide realized we had almost no experience
backpacking. He gently suggested that most people would work up to a trip
like this, not just jump in with both feet. There was not much sitting
around the fire that night -- more standing and circling it -- due to the
changing winds. It ended up being our most comfortable night, with radiant
heat from the cave walls, shelter from the wind, and warmth held in by the
clouds. It didn't rain after all, but we were happy for our cave, and went
to sleep telling each other we were definitely crazy, even without having
ever ingested ground bones.
There was only one way to get out of the top of nowhere, back to the middle
of nowhere. On Saturday, day six, Santiago said we had 12 miles of flat and
gently downhill trail to return to Norogachi. Based on our previous
performance, he thought we could do this in about six hours. We started at
9:40 and stopped briefly in the town of Pahuachique to visit the church, but
otherwise took few breaks in this steady, long walk to the shower. We
passed lots of Tara ranchos and as the day warmed up, many women washing and
drying clothes at the river. I was in the lead and trying to maintain a
steady pace by counting my steps until I lost track and had to start over.
I counted to four hundred dozens of times, and usually got distracted by
scenery around that far. We broke at 12:30 for water, and then again at
2:30 when I started to see electric power lines, hoping we were getting
closer to civilization. I was dreading the answer, but I asked Santiago how
far we had to go. I was steeling myself for "an hour and a half" and hoping
for "an hour," but he said he thought we were about thirty minutes from
home. Indeed, we walked into Martha's yard at 3 pm straight up. After the
greatest shower of my life, in which I washed my hair three times, we went
in for supper and reviewed the topographic maps with our guide. Santiago
estimated that we had actually covered not 12, but 15 miles, in five and a
half hours of walking. We were going almost three miles an hour all day,
with 35 to 40 pound packs on our backs. According to the books, this is
ridiculously fast. Now that it was over, we were impressed with ourselves.
We learned a lot about packing from our guide and from the experience. He
hoped that we wouldn't be burned out on backpacking. We do intend to pack
again, and are delighted that we are tough enough (who knew?!?) to do 70
miles in six days, but we think our ideal days will be more like eight
miles.
Sunday was another day of transportation: truck to Roseachi, bus to Creel,
train to Bauhuichivo, two hours of hanging out in the train station, and
then Suburban to Urique. Our guide had described the warm climate in the
canyon bottoms, and directed us to El Rancho de Keith, a campground and
organic garden run by an ex-hippie from Oregon. We had also been told to
find Tita's Restaurant Plaza, for great food in Urique. The driver at the
train station said it was a three hour trip. We didn't leave until 5:15,
and the ride down the mountain took nearly four hours, on a ridiculously
bumpy road, at about 10 miles an hour the whole way, with four smoking
breaks for the driver and his buddies from the front seat. By the time we
reached Tita's the kitchen was closed, and we were offered hamburgers. When
she saw I wasn't eating the burger, Tita took pity on me and also whipped up
some beans on tostadas and chamomile tea, on the house. She told us Keith's
was full, with a large group of college students from Oregon, and directed
us to a hotel that reminded me of a David Lynch movie. It was a bizarrely
large, nearly unfurnished, and therefore echoey room, in the middle of
renovations, with no lights in the bathroom, glitter and star-shaped sequins
mixed into the paint of the ceiling, and a seemingly endless dogfight in the
yard below. Throwing things at the dogs did not deter them.
The dogs must have killed each other or been stopped at some point, because
we did sleep and wake up to a beautiful view of the Rio Urique and the
canyon cliffs beyond. After breakfast, Tita pointed us in the direction of
Keith's and we walked down to see if we could camp there. Unfortunately the
place had been rented exclusively to this group from Oregon for three weeks,
and nineteen teenagers were almost more than the tiny bathhouse could
handle, so we were denied a campsite among the mesquite. One of Keith's
cooks, however, said she had rooms to rent, and walked us to her home a few
lots back towards town. The Familia Ramirez rented us a front bedroom and
the use of their kitchen (plus plenty of flour tortillas whenever she made
them) for the week. Chiro, the man of the house, was quite industrious,
baking adobe bricks in a huge oven on one side of the property, growing a
large garden in front of the house, and making beautiful bentwood furniture
(chairs and tables). The 17 year old daughter was home on vacation from
boarding school (preparatoria) in Cuahetemoc, apparently very busy sleeping
late and watching telenovelas, and the 21 year old son, home from college in
Chihuahua, a PE major, was volunteering coaching at the middle school in
Urique. The family was very gracious and relaxed with our presence, and we
enjoyed being able take regular showers, wash some clothes and dry them on
tree branches, and shop every day and cook for ourselves (not many
restaurants in Urique anyway). We spent the next few days healing blisters,
taking short walks to the even smaller towns in either direction along the river,
sunning ourselves on small sand beaches, and observing the social
habits of burros. They were quite shy: when we walked past one alone on the
road it seemed to try to look small or disappear, telegraphing "Don't talk
to me, I'm just a bush." From one of our sunning rocks we watched a lost
burro bray to his friends, running after them like a smaller kid trying to
keep up with the crowd. When I got hot enough I took a few dips in the
freezing river.
The scenery at the canyon bottoms was incredible, the air
so clear and the mountains so high that they looked like movie backdrops.
Keith gave us free grapefruits and sold us some papayas (a crossbreed of
local papaya and the mroe flavorful Hawaiian type) during a tour of his
property (a huge bunkhouse, a beautiful guest cabin with wood and stone
furnishings, outbuildings, and of course the huge organic garden). One
night, we went down to the river to build a fire from waste wood, which
attracted about nine or ten young teenage boys who had been amusing
themselves running through the rocks, bean fields, and sugar cane fields in
the dark. They sat around the fire as if it were a normal thing to
encounter gringos by the river, even venturing out to collect more wood for
us from time to time, and joked and teased each other, a few of them smoking
Faros (the local cheap cigarettes). One shared a piece of sugar cane with
us. Another was evidently the class clown, and told us stories about how
high the river gets in the rainy season (the time-honored "going fishing
with a pistol") and a lot of other stuff I couldn't understand. As in my
previous trip to Mexico, I did well with speaking and understanding a lot of
Spanish, and was complimented by our hosts on my accent, but teenage boy
slang was way out of my comprehension zone.
Friday the 20th was another transportation day. At 7:30 we boarded the
"bus" out of Urique (the ascent out of the bottom of nowhere was actually
faster, only three hours) and settled in for another four hour wait at the
train station in Bauhuichivo. We enjoyed another fifteen minute stopover at
Divisadero (another chance for gorditas, chile rellenos, and photos), but
the train did not get all the way to the end of the line, Los Mochis, until
9:15 pm. Los Mochis is a fairly large city, although not very pretty, and
our book says it compensates for lack of charm by having good restaurants,
still open to serve at 10:30 at night. We checked into an old hotel with a
lovely courtyard and interior walls painted robin's-egg blue, with a
marginally acceptable room, and went out to dinner, delicious seafood and
homemade tortillas. I have to admit we were getting tired of tortillas and
craving some good Kelly's Bakery sour loaf. The bread we found at a
panaderia in the morning was simultaneously tasteless, airy, and stale.
Pancakes cooked freshly by a street vendor were tastier. The downtown of
Los Mochis looked like certain parts of San Francisco (Mission district) busy
with Saturday shoppers and vendors. Eventually it was time to go to the
airport and board the first in a series of three planes, four airports,
passing through immigration at Hermosillo and customs in Tucson (where they
confiscated our tangerines, but missed a couple of grapefruit), and laying
over for three hours in Phoenix. We were pleased to find Starbucks (Real
Coffee) and TCBY in the airport, and I read quickly through a fluffy Terry
McMillan novel from the newsstand. By taxi and car, we arrived late
Saturday night in Santa Cruz, exhausted. Our roommate Sarah had managed to
keep the fire going in the woodstove for three whole weeks without us!
Dave got some form of "turista" towards the end of our trip, and is just
recovered after nearly a month. The backpacks, too, are resting in the garage until he feels
his strength coming back. Meanhwile, we are enjoying the conveniences of
this American life and eating lots of sourdough. (For those who might want
an easier visit to the area, the Chihuahua-Pacifico train ride can be taken
from one hotel to the next, and many hotels offer scenic day tours of the
canyons by van or easy hike. In the back country areas we visited, it was
necessary to speak Spanish. But if one stays in the fancier hotels, English
is common.) We might go back someday to pack from Batopilas to Urique (more
the beaten backpacker path, but offering several different routes). Keith
(of El Rancho de Keith) says if Dave can manage to sprout a tree from the
pineapple guava tree we have here in Happy Valley, he would trade that tree
for a week in the incredible guest cabin on his property. Dave intends to
try to grow some grapefruits from the (illegal) seeds we brought back --
this property needs a touch of Mexico, and other people seem to grow
grapefruits here despite the colder and much wetter climate.