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| I picked up Nathan at the Park and Ride at the old Stapleton Airport about 4pm on February 26. We were driving to Panama. It was a cold and clear February afternoon. We drove through a splendid sunset in Castle Rock and the full moon was up before rolling through Colorado Springs. Mo was trucking along just fine, except for a vibration coming from the right rear wheel. Were the bearings going out? I decided not to worry too much. As long as I kept it under 65mph it was fine. On into the winter desert night of New Mexico we drove, fleeing Arctic air--the night before in Ft. Collins the mercury plunged to -3F. On to the eternal warmth of Mexico. We pulled off I-25 at 3am just past Socorro to sleep for a few hours. The temperature dipped just below freezing. The next day we pulled into El Paso. The border crossing to Mexico was not well marked but we found it finally after asking several people. El Paso near the border made a curious change. The streets got dirtier and the shops smaller. We stopped to buy a few last minute things before leaving the good old US of A. But the stores here didn't have the usual stuff. It seemed a hodge-podge of stuff that for some reason had not sold somewhere else. The people here were smaller than your average Texan--they were all Mexican. No one spoke English. The cars were a mixture of old junkers and new American trucks. I expected the change to come when we crossed into Mexico, but here Mexico had spilled over. We crossed into Juarez. Made it through customs. I was given a green sticker with what looked like a small computer network embedded into it for my windshield. Bought Mexican auto insurance. A man offered it to me for $120 for a one month policy. After talking to several supposed competing agents, they came to a group consensus to sell me the policy for $60. It was probably worth $30! Within a ten minutes of driving in Mexico, I ran a stop sigh (and was scolded by a police woman) and ran into a car in a parking lot (luckily there was no damage)! I guess I was a bit thrown off being in a new country! We wove through Juarez and then out into the wide open Sonora Desert. We found a dirt road leading behind a rocky hill along the railroad tracks out of view of the highway and camped for the night. Up early and made tea and oatmeal and watched a train rumble by. On the road to Chihuahua. We needed a full size spare tire for Mo as we planned to be driving on some remote 4x4 roads and did not want to rely on the baby spare stored under the hood on top of the engine. At this point we learned that Subarus are not sold in Mexico. And, it turns out, Subaru has a slightly different lug pattern for their rims. We went to several rim and tire shops and found nothing. One guy told us it was the start of the "windy season" as dust and soot swirled around in his cement and tin workshop. Finally we found one. The guy there said that in his 15 years there he'd only seen one other. Walking out with a rim and a used tire for $30 we felt pretty lucky! We left hilly, dusty, dry and sprawling Chihuahua behind and climbed higher into the hills and passed through Cuauhtemoc, where a bill board read "The Most Important Apples in the World Are Grown Here." Smudge pots were being set out in the orchards to protect the blooms that would soon come. Many other bill boards read "We Work Hard in Chihuahua." Brand new large American trucks were everywhere. I expected things to be cheaper down here in Mexico. For the most part, prices were the same or even a bit higher. I've heard that 2/3 of the Mexican work force works in the United States. It seemed believable here in the state of Chihuahua. Out of Cuauhtemoc we found a parched and rocky overgrazed pasture with a few thorny bushes to camp in. At 6,000 feet it was a cold and windy night. We continued on the next day in the desert ranch land taking back roads. We passed many small and very poor looking subsistence farms. This is the land of the Tarahumara Indians. We could see this in the faces of the people and the bright pinks, oranges, and yellows of their clothes. Lunch and internet in the tourist town of Creel, and then on to El Divisadero at 8,000+ feet on the edge of the Barranca del Cobre (The Copper Canyon). There is a nice hotel here and the railroad climbs out of the canyon here up from the Gulf of California. The view is of a canyon complex more vast than the Grand Canyon, though geologically less dramatic. We explored ideas of hiking down to the river to kayak, but in light of rumors of drought conditions persisting for the past 6 years, we decided to drive to the bottom of the canyon at Urique, 7,000 feet below. We drove all afternoon and into the evening and arrived at a town we hoped was Urique. No such luck. They said we weren't even half way there yet! Went a few miles more and found a creek to bed down by. Dinner was some pasta shells with tomato sauce and avocado, chips and salsa. Had our last beers. Got up early the next day. Nathan found some old crates in the woods we used to organize our food and cooking supplies. We finally reached a vista to the bottom of the canyon, probably 4,000 feet down. I put Mo in 4wd low and he groaned down the steep grade. We saw many donkeys, often eating cardboard off the road. Indian women along the road wove baskets out of yucca leaves. Small farms were perched almost impossibly on the sides of the canyon. Trees bloomed pink, purple, and magenta for the hummingbirds. We finally made it to the bottom. It was a hot spring day and we found a restaurant with a cool court yard with fountains and flowers and Papaya trees. We had a great lunch of fried local fish and a couple of Tecates, for finally a reasonable price! I met "Victorio", a Tarahumara running legend. He won the Leadville 100 fifteen years ago, as well as several other famous endurance races. His real name is Jesus, but they renamed him "Victorio" (Victorious), because he always won. He was a small, thin man of almost 50 years, though he looked more like 35. I got a home-made mango popsicle and a local 7 year old came at me laughing, saying I was going to get "el turismo", or a case of the runs, from it. It made me worry a bit, but I've never had trouble with local food while traveling. Think I've got some healthy fauna in my intestines that take care of it. There was a heavy military presence in the valley due to pressure and funding from the United States to curb marijuana production. The people living here for the most part resented this. Many ball caps bore a marijuana leaf and read "Verde es la Vida", or "Green is Life". They can sell it for a lot more than they can corn, and many of them enjoy smoking it after a long hot day of toiling in the fields. When the military finds a field of marijuana they light it on fire and leave it unchecked, often causing forest fires. The residents joke that in the harvest season every one gets hi from the smoke of that fills the valley. We went to the river. It was a series of ponds linked together by a trickle of water. Our river guide book said that March was a good time to run the river. The 6 year drought was for real! We camped on a sandy beach. A curious 11 year old boy hung out with us while we set up camp. I shared a tangerine with him and he told me his favorite subject in school was history. He lives on his family farm where they tend 100 sheep, 5 goats, a burro, a horse, a pig, and an unknown number of chickens. His 20 year old sister works in Chihuahua. Swam in one of the pools and took a nap on the beach. I later found out that the sand flies were out. I didn't notice the bites at first. They gradually get more irritated over a few days, and persist for 10 days or more. Aaaaargh! I hate sand flies! Camped under a beautiful, starry night. Paddled around in one of the pools in the morning. What the heck, I hauled the kayak all the way down here! We headed out. Got some gas before we left in Urique. The gas station was a shed in front of someone's house. It was Saturday and the kids were helping out with the operation. A kid brought over a 20 liter jug and a section of hose to siphon the gas. I tried a couple of times to start the siphon by sucking on the hose but failed. The 12 year old kid grabbed the hose and started sucking. He sucked a little too hard and got a mouth-full of gas. He spat it out everywhere and his mom came running. He said he didn't swallow any. I gave him some water to wash out his mouth with. He saw my Frisbee in the car and we played catch for a bit while Nathan sorted out the payment for the gas. The kid had a great arm. I was a sucker. This 12 year old kid was working on a Saturday choking on gasoline. My gasoline! I gave him the Frisbee. This really pissed off Nathan. It was a nice Whammo 175 gram disc. Great for playing catch, and not like anything you can find in Mexico. We were on our way to the beaches of Mazatlan and now were without a Frisbee. I regretted giving the Frisbee away too, but I felt so bad for the kid and guilty for contributing to his situation. Oh well! We began to climb out of the canyon and were stopped by some heavily armed and very bored military personnel. We had seen them in the town of Urique the day before. They were looking for people shipping marijuana out of the valley. I'm sure the Tarahumara just hike it out. They wanted to buy Nathan's sleeping pad, surely to comfort their bums on the long, boring days sitting around at the check point. They let us go. On we went for hours of 4x4 driving up and down the side of the canyon. We were heading west to the Pacific. A couple of times we stopped to give rides to people traveling to and from "Juntas", regional gatherings of farmers and ranchers on the first Saturday of every month. We'd throw them in back with all of our gear. The trailer hitch would bottom out on rocks and I would tell them it didn't usually do that and I didn't know why it was happening now. They got the joke. No one could believe we were making this trip in a "car". Obviously they don't know what a Subaru can do! We had several offers to stay in canyon country, but we were motivated to keep going. After 8 hours of serious driving we arrived at a ferry to take us across the reservoir at the mouth of the canyon. We crossed as darkness fell. Exhausted, we looked for a place to eat and camp. We pulled in at a fishing lodge. Apparently it is world class bass fishing on this reservoir. We were warmly greeted by the owner of the operation. He was excited to meet some adventurers. I think he was a bit bored of the usual rich and over weight American fishermen that paid his bills. He fed us for free and suggested we tip the kitchen. An older American man who lived out of his RV with his dog joined us and told us stories. We thanked our host and were on our way. We found a sandy wash and camped out for the night amongst donkeys and stars. |
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