Copper Canyon 3

We knew it was going to be hot in the inner canyon. And it was. When we got dropped off after the “safari” ride down, we had a plan suggested to us of hiking up about 4 miles to a small Tarhumara village called Guadalupe. It was supposed to have a lovely church from the 1700’s and real deep Copper Canyon feel to the village.

We were told not to take the suspended foot bridge across the river because of “bad pine”, which I assumed was rotten boards. Broken English and my own poor Spanish determined to stay on the road that follows the river. Well after walking a about 2.5 miles of 100 degree dry heat along a horse road next to the river, we saw the walking bridge. A really cool narrow long suspension bridge swaying gently above the river.

We heeded the advice kept following what “we thought” was the road. It went under the bridge and began to rise along the canyon walls. After about 40 minutes of switch backs and getting further from the river…we got the feeling we missed something, and we were no longer where we should be. I vaguely recalled a drawing in the sand from Tito when he said don’t take the bridge, but follow the river….drawing a line to the right of the bridge. We went left.

So we turned around, having added a mile or two of hot walking in the sun, and got back close to the bridge. This time we saw an older Tarahumara woman walking as pleasant as could be across the old suspension bridge. At the same time as we back-tracked to the bridge, we saw two 4-wheel drive trucks drive into the river and cross the shallow water on the rocks just to the right of the bridge. This must have been what Tito meant…don’t use the bridge, but walk “through” the river to the other side! Welll, we looked up and thought if that lady can cross the bridge we can! J We watched and then walked under and could see boards that had been replaced…and figured Tito had old news…we walked back the trail to the part that leads out to the bridge, and crossed un-eventfully, even casually and excitedly swaying over the river.

We reached the other side, re-found the horse road trail and walked another parched, scorched earth miles getting precariously close to the end of or planned water usage. We were told there was a small store where we could buy Cokes or water in Guadalupe.

As we cooked along the road, we started to rise again and pass a few small village huts, or adobe houses. A few small children came out asking for “foto? Foto?” and for a peso or two we took their pics, giggled with them and let them escort us along the trail until they figured we were done passing pesos. It was getting long…too long, and too hot and we did not see the markings of town.
We decided rest a minute and take a few more small swigs of water. And then agreed we do another switch back or two so we could see more ahead of us. The cool river behind us was really looking to good to pass up and a swim was calling to us. It was at the last rise in the road, where a snarling typical Mexico dog came barking along his fence line, but this gate was open. He stood barking and baring teeth, which has been pretty atypical of the loud but generally friendly mongrels we meet everywhere. We held our ground a little, and he inched at us barking, snarling, and salivating.

We decided the river and a cool swim was waaaay more interesting than the hot dusty town of Guadalupe anyway and turned around. We walked back, passed the happy kids again, shared our binoculars with them much to their amusement, and then walked out in to the middle of the gorgeous rocky Urique River. We found a pebbly outcropping that formed at a bend making a nice deep pool of clear blue-green mountain water, stripped down to undies and plunged into the cool refreshing river!

3 more stops along the hot trail back was the only way were able to survive the dwindling water supply and heat. It was very nice, gorgeous canyon walls and wonderful swimming. We met a couple from England that was just completing a 3 day back country hike with pack mules and a guide and they were coming from the outfitter we had originally planned to do. They looked exhausted, and we were glad we did not pay extra to have someone march us three days through the canyon inferno.
We met Tito back in town in the afternoon at the appointed time, had a couple of cold beers in Urique, walked the small 2 street village and rode back up the canyon. We drove inside the truck with Tito until the sun got low enough where a lot of the walls were shaded, and then had him stop the car, strap us back on top “safari” style and we laughed the last hour and half home back up onto of the world enjoying the tremendous views of the receding canyons.



That night was spent resting around the fire with margarita’s again, another huge homemade dinner of tortillas, fresh grilled fish, beans, salad and Mexican rice…..good living!

My Mis-Adventure

The second morning on the canyon rim, back at the San Isidro Lodge, I woke early, worn, exhausted, sun-baked and dehydrated. Lisa stayed in bed because the mountain air is colder and the sun was just getting ready to come up. I peeked out and saw Tito and his brother Mario were up with coffee on the wood campfire. So I got up, dressed and joined them. We chatted about the “safari” ride and the hike Lisa and I took (more later) and I took a cup of coffee to walk around and explore a little.
They have a handful of horses and a few large beautiful mules for packing and riding the canyon trails. Part of a tour group had taken a trail ride the day before when we went down to the river at the base of the canyon. They were out of the corral, and it looked like they were grazing or eating at some grain and hay that had been set out early for them. Large, strong and yet very lean animals, you can tell they are geared for high elevation and steep long hot rides. I thought I would go over and say good morning, missing the feel and smell of the horses around our own fence line in Spring Grove in the summer.

When I was in 5th grade, our family took the classic Minnesota Resort week vacation to Camper’s Paradise on Lake Darling near Alexandria. The two things I remember most was the night we discovered that the old flip top pop machine that you were supposed to have to put a dime into to get your soda pop from was actually broken. All you had to do was push back a lever at the opening and slide a bottle out for free!! My brother Bill and I spent the better part of the afternoon getting sick on free Fresca and Orange Crush.

The other thing I remember was how deathly afraid of horses I was. I think the whole family, except me and my little sister Cathye at the time who was probably in 2nd grade, all took horseback riding lessons and went a trail ride. I can still see the family photo album of everyone proudly getting their riding ribbons and riding around the ring while I sat like a scared little cowboy on the fence in my knee length cut off jeans, a plaid short-sleeve Opie Taylor shirt, and my Manor Park Badgers Little League hat propped on my round buzzed-haircut head. Scared to go near the horses. Well, a few trail rides on half dead Riding Ranches in high school and college, together with moving to the farm in Spring Grove, got me over my fear and trepidation. I have since taken riding lessons and am quite sure I used to be related to Festus Parker in a previous life and actually rode with Matt Dillon on more than one posse.

But this morning, a healthy dose of trepidation was with me as I strolled over to the horses.
They were after all strangers to me. They were not the lovely coddled gentle giants that Lisa brushes down every night at our place. So I approached them with caution, steaming coffee mug in hand. A large dark caramel colored mule with a black mane and tail was broadside to me grazing on breakfast. I cooed and approached her slowly. I gently chimed good morning and slowly raised my hand palm down to allow a sniff of my hand. She watched me, and I watched her ears…they were not pinned back, and she continued to nibble at the grain and hay seeds on the rock along with 3 or 4 other horses.

My hand stretched out to her side, and I ever so slowly brushed two soft finger tips across her soft coat. Then all time seemed to stop…..

In hindsight, it was no more than 3 seconds. But it was a combination of interminable fear and fright, and a slow motion yet laser light-speed with which my mind’s eye saw this huge animal twitch her rear end, shuffle her hind legs, and with blinding speed and ferocity lash out and squarely catch my thigh with a hoof the size of a large dinner plate! In the half second that this happened, with my finger never leaving the handle of my coffee cup, I flinched backwards as I knew what was happening but in no way was fast enough to get out of the way.

All at once I felt like I got hit by a truck…I was lifted off my feet and projected in a straight line about 4 feet straight backwards, where to make matters worse I landed square on one cheek of my ass on top of a tree root that loomed up from the hard earth like frozen 2 foot long salami embedded in the rocks. I literally saw the coffee that was previously steaming in my cup, suspended in front of me in the air before it came crashing down with me. I fell like a ton of bricks and filled with adrenaline and my hair standing on end I automatically got to my unsteady feet and moved 10 feet away before collapsing back to my knees. I could not believe my thigh had not broken cleanly in half. I was shaking uncontrollably, and the pain in my butt was stretching quickly down my leg all the way to my calf.

I did a couple of knee bends just to make sure I had not actually broken a bone. My thigh was beginning to throb like the train pulling hard up the mountain the day before. I walked unsteadily back to the cabin with my coffee cup still attached to my finger, half filled with dirt from my fall. I got Lisa out of bed to make sure I was not hallucinating or something, and to check me over to make sure I was not broken. In the course of the next two days, and still to this day….a bruise developed on my inner right thigh that stretches 13” long, and wraps 8” around my leg. Deep colorful blues, black, purples and now greens mixed with yellow. I have a deep black bone bruise on my cheek the size of lemon, and if its possible to bruise a nerve, I hit the one that runs all the way down your leg.


This put a slight damper on the next couple of days, and is the real reason why we took another day to relax and stay at San Isidro in the mountains before heading up taller into the Copper Canyon. By the way, the nearest “clinic” was 2 hours north on the train to the tourist trap Indian Village town of Creel, and the nearest hospital was 5 hours back by train to El Fuerte, after the 2 hour journey by buckboard dirt roads to the train station at Bauhichivo.

So all in all, I consider myself fortunate, and gently reacquainted with a healthy dose of fear and trepidation among strange horses.

Copper Canyon 2

The train trip through the canyon is a real treat. Lisa has always really liked trains and we spent a great deal of the ride in a small space between the cars hanging our bodies out over the precarious cliffs and tunnels right next to a giant sign reading “For your own safety, positively no standing in this area!!” It seems a good manifestation of a really big difference between Mexico and the US. It is said here in Mexico that “Mexicans live outside the law, while Americans live inside the law”. There are laws in Mexico, but basically it is a free for all. People sort of do what they want, as long as it does not get out of hand. What that really is I don’t know….but it is a interesting and unique difference. In the US, we are so anal about rules, laws, scofflaws, permissions, keep off this, do not enter that, buckle-up it’s the law, you must wear a helmet!!! etc etc. In Mexico, it’s more like...”Just behave, and live and let live” and basically people do. Anyway…I digress….it was a lovely illegal space to enjoy the unobstructed view of the canyon.
We started the ride at around 650 feet in elevation, and in approximately 250km I think, it rises to 7,800 feet! Its amazing…you can actually see, hear, and feel the train pull up slopes I would have a hard time biking up hills that long and steep! The rails sort of switch back, but more like going around a mountain a few times, rather than straight hairpin turns. There were many, many really cool sharp turns, but mostly you could not tell that much. Many tunnels and a bunch of great bridges, some quite tall river crossings. And the scary thing was…at every bridge, if you looked down either at the start, or the end, there was always 3 or 4 old rusty crashed railcars down below on the river bank…hmmmmm?!
We got off the train in a town called Bauhichivo. It was about after 4-5 hours, and a total rise of 5,000 feet. From here we were met by Tito Munoz from San Isidro Lodge. (checkout http://www.coppercanyonamigos.com/index.html) It was a really nice place tucked back in the mountain near the great canyon rim of the Urique Canyon which is the main deep canyon on the area. We stayed in a private cabin, 3 HUGE meals a day included, and they even tossed in a nice margarita happy hour around the campfire each afternoon. A very friendly well run, knowledgeable, family run place. They provided a family member to take us out on bird walks into the canyon, nature hikes to the rims so you don’t get swallowed up and lost, and just good service!

The two highlights of the 3 nights we stayed were 1) Lisa and I signed up for what they called the Copper Canyon Safari. Basically it is 2 bucket seats bolted precariously, but sturdily to the top of a Toyota 4Runner. We rode the entire 5000 feet down the hairpin single lane rocky dirt trail to the base of the canyon and the town of Urique on the interior! Unbelievable! We almost could not stop laughing it was so much fun. Its not exactly like us to jump on what looked to be a “touristy” way to go down the canyon…but it so intrigued us, and made Lisa laugh, that we decided to go for it. As it turns out, we started by riding in the truck for the first ½ hour to get to the spectacular point of the start at the rim, and once we got out and up onto the top…everything changed. The sounds, the view, the 360 degree access to the walls, canyons, the hairpins, and scary rocky narrow overhangs he careens around made it like a 2 hour fair ride down a mile into the center of the earth!! Very fun! And then…we find out when we were leaving, we were the first, and only 2 to ever sign up for the Safari!!! Too much fun.See pics.
Secondly, we were very much treated to a world famous athlete, and one of the most revered Tarahumara Indians in all of Mexico. Victoriano Churro, at age 55 years old, took on the world’s most elite 100 mile Ultra-Marathoners in Colorado to win the first race he ever ran….and he beat the pack wearing home-made sandals made from cutout rubber tires from the dump found the week before the race. The Tarahumara are world famous distance runners. There is a lot on the web about him, and the running and Tarahumara, check out this quick though: http://www.ss-tours.com/tara-indians.html

We not only met him, but he gave us a tour of his modest bachelor pad. He is now 70 years old and lives alone in a very traditional 2 room mud-adobe house, with a garden and a small log food storage locker for his corn and apples that he grows and lives on. Very humbling. BUT…the other part is, Victoriano is also an acclaimed rain dancer and hunting party dancer, and he joined us at the camp fire at the Lodge and performed 2 Tarahumara Rain, and Rabbit dances for us. There is NO WAY I could have kept up with his dancing and hopping for 20 minutes in a pair of flat rubber sandals…this man is made to move and just keeps moving. A very powerful, entertaining, and memorable day and night. (see pics)

We are Back! Copper Canyon post 1

The week in the Copper Canyon was all we wanted it to be and then some. Just like the Grand Canyon and other natural wonders…its really to hard to capture the feel and the experience in words. Although I have not been to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon….from the pics I have seen, a lot of the Copper Canyon is like that. At Creel, the elevation was 7800 feet I think…so a lot of pine forest mixed with desert flora and shrub. The Copper Canyon is actually a series of mountain ranges and enormous canyons. The depth from peak to base is actually deeper than the Grand Canyon, and the overall size of the “area” of the Copper Canyon much larger too…the grandeur is not quite the same. It is gorgeous, stupendous, beautiful, incredible and all that….

Since we do not have a car…the trip just to get to the region was fun in itself. We took a local 7:30am bus from Alamos to Navajoa; a 45 minute trip for 2 bucks each. In Navojoa, we caught another 3 hour bus to Los Mochis on the Sea of Cortez for 6 bucks. This is where most global travelers fly into for their Copper Canyon trips. In Mochis, we caught a 3rd bus to El Fuerte, about an hour plus for 4 bucks. Good deal to get across the state of Sonora, and down to the train for the Canyon.

Getting off in Los Mochis we had no idea how to get a local bus to El Fuerte…we waddled with our packs down the main drag looking for something that might resemble a bus station. Finally, I stopped a woman and asked in Spanish “donde esta el autobuses para El Fuerte?” She scratched her head and spoke way too fast for me to catch a single word…but as she began to point down and across the street, an old green school bus came careening around the corner with an old man in a cowboy hat riding shotgun in the stairwell of the bus, waving at Lisa and I, obvious tourists looking for something, yelling “El Fuerte? El Fuerte?!”. We waved and yelled back “Si!! Si!!”, the bus stopped traffic as we jumped on and away we went…perfect!

This bus was fun. Local people on their way around the area. An old grizzled woman with sun baked lines in her face like a weathered prune was in the middle of absolutely nowhere on the highway and flagged down the bus. She had a 100 year old wooden-wheeled wheelbarrow filled with potatoes. The bus pulled over, the old guy riding shot gun loaded the potatoes, left the old woman, and off we went! I wonder if the bus fare is the same for potatoes as it is for us?

We arrived in El Fuerte around 1:30 pm, and got a ride up to Rio Vista Lodge. A place that we had scoped out on the web, and was recommended by a friend in Alamos. It turned out to be a great spot, clean, nice room on a great bluff looking over the El Fuerte River. We walked the town, had a few margarita’s with a tour group at the Lodge, then got a bite for dinner…the train leaves early the next morning. El Fuerte is nice, genuine old colonial town in Mexico that dates to 1564. Not a lot of reason to go there, other than to catch the train to the Canyon. A few really beautiful restored hacienda style hotels, and a nice plaza…but due to proximity to the river, the town is filled with small biting gnats, or no-seeums that leave nasty welts. Every tourist in town was covered with tiny mosquito like bites. Ours too, appeared en masse the next day….nasty beasts!

I’ll post more later so these don’t get too long.

A Day in the Country

We sort of got stood up on our dinner party Wed night….not sure what happened, but it all turned out for the better. Kelley and Penny Crossman, our new pals with the old orchard outside of town called and invited us to drive out deeper in to the Sierra Madre Mountains, into the Sonoran Ecological Reserve. They are good friends with Stephanie Meyer, a naturalist/scientist that is running and managing a few very large, as in 8000 acre, rancho’s deep in the reserve areas for an International Conservancy group similar to The Nature Conservancy. Anyway, we drove out with Stephanie on Thursday and spent the night with her, her ranch hands, and the Crossmans, and returned Friday.
Totally, totally wonderful. It is virtually the only road east of Alamos, and heads straight in to the high Sierra’s. We drove only about 20 miles, but it was an incredibly steep, bumpy, rocky, insane 3 hour drive nearly the whole distance in 4-wheel drive low in her old Isuzu Trooper. I swear we each lost 3 pounds just bouncing around her truck with her dog. But she is a very talented naturalist and biologist schooled in the tree’s, blooming desert trees and cactus, as well as all the wildlife. So we got a great lesson the whole way out and finally got to see what we looked out and wondered about…what lies behind all these mountains!
The ranch is deep in a canyon on a river….with 2 small 2-room adobe buildings, a thatched roof outdoor cocina/kitchen, and a series of corrals for work mules and horses. She and one of her ranch hands fixed a fabulous dinner or fresh tomatoes with basil, sautéed carrots and kohlrabi, and a fried coconut chicken…we brought wine and beer, and all ate til we could eat no more, sat around under the Sierra Mountain stars and talked about Tarahumara Indian life in the surrounding villages…very cool.


The morning dawned cool and beautiful, and Lis and I took a short bird walk before coffee as the sun was rising up over the canyon walls. Coffee was served cowboy style, just grounds tossed in hot water…thick, rich, chewy black coffee…yum! Stephanie then fixed us all a local ranch-fresh scrambled eggs, sweet rolls, fruit, and fresh made corn tortillas made that morning by the ranch hands….more yum!
We then went on a long slow desert bird watching walk along the river…the giant old growth Cypress hugging the shorelines with trunks knotted and gnarled over 5 feet across!! Only to be outdone by the massive old growth Strangler Fig trees…incredible Banyan like trees that easily spanned 10 feet at the base….and filled with roots and trunks that looked like solid concrete…I’ll try to post a picture or two.



We saw Road Runners, Large Black Hawks the size of eagles, Blue Buntings, Green Kingfishers, and large flamboyant Magpie Jays; topped off with finding a 6 foot long, completely intact snake skin-shed from the tip of its tail to the tip of each jaw…cool! A beautiful walk, and a rare opportunity to glimpse some of the interior nature preserve lands of the rare Northern Sonoran Desert Tropical Hardwood Forest. The bone jarring ride back home was another 3 hours of backseat bouncing and shock rattling craziness…and this time we got tossed around with 2 dogs!
Tonight is my “real” birthday dinner! We are going to one of the most beautiful small elegant rustic hotels you can possibly imagine. It is right here in Alamos, but world famous…Hacienda de los Santos…check it out at www.haciendadelossantos.com. We had dinner here 3 years ago, and to this day, Lisa swears it was the most romantic dinner we have ever had..I agree.

Saturday is a day of lounging in Alamos again….and by virtue of meeting Stephanie, we are signed up to travel back to the coast…the scene of the sting ray crime!!!!....to take a boat trip up and through a large estuary/bird sanctuary where the Rio Mayo river meets the Sea of Cortez. This is a major western fly-way stop over for thousands and thousands of migratory birds…just beginning their way back to you all!!

Monday is going to be the departure date for the week in the Copper Canyon. If you have not read up anything on that…google Copper Canyon and hunt around a little. Its pretty awesome. We will spend a week traveling one of the great rail journeys of the world, which rises 7,000 feet in less than 150km, as well as hiking and exploring the rim, and the interior of the canyon.

(Sat) The Hacienda was all we expected again. It truly is the most romantic, intimate, gorgeous rustic hotel and restaurant we have seen anywhere in the world. The website does not do it justice in pictures…I took one here from the Cowboy Bar…and one fro dinner. It was a great evening. Here too is a few pics of the Strangler Fig roots pouring down the Cliffside…these trees are just mind boggling; we were told there is one in Aduana, about 10 miles away, that is a world famously photographed tree….we missed it! We might have to bike back over there in a couple weeks just to see it. And one last pic of the Rancho we stayed out in the Sierra’s.

This is probably the last you will hear from us in a while, as we are off on Monday am for the Canyon, and the Estuary early tomorrow for bird watching. Hasta luego!

Lazy Days

Thanks for the birthday greetings! We started the day Tuesday, biking out of town about five miles to an old 20 acre orchard that some folks we met at movie night Monday now own and are developing or restoring….the Crossman’s. Wonderful people…very down to earth, and are now growing heirloom tomatoes, arugula, and different organic herbs and stuff for the local restaurants here in Alamos. They spend Sept-April here in Alamos, and live in Colorado…good examples of people still “working” in the states, and doing “some work” here in Alamos using the internet.

The orchard or farm had a nice assortment of chickens, an old burro named Firecracker, and a few horses…so Lisa got a nice fix of farm critters! They are having a l little market today in town selling their organic produce…we are going to go there this am after I write this.

My foot is not progressing like I wish it was…still feels quite swollen, though does not look it, and it still feels very “bruised” and is tender to walk on…It does not look at all infected, so I am just hoping it’s a slow progression of getting better.
Birthday dinner last night consisted of the most highly recommended eat-spot in all of Alamos…the weenie man. There is a guy who is only open in the evenings making the worlds best hot dogs. People flock there every night…he sets up half in his yard, half on the street…and grills up big fat dogs wrapped in bacon…laid in a huge fresh bun packed with fried onions, homemade salsa, mayo, jalapenos, and cheese….man o man…he could give any Chicago Dog vendor a run for his money!! We pulled up plastic chairs on the dirt yard, and joined the throngs of local families, and wolfed down a big birthday dog!

We finally saw a small cloud in the sky last evening…thought it was worth noting. And for the second night in a row, saw a free range horse outside the gate to our house eating all the decorative grasses that they plant along the wall….not sure if that is an “auto-mower” of some sort, or just a smart horse that has discovered a local treat….need to check with the gardener.
We have our second dinner party tonight. It is fun to meet some of the characters and ex-pats making a life here…we learn more from each conversation…and meet new personalities. Everyone shares a little something different. It all seemed so exotic and exciting on the way down here…but the more people we meet, the longer we are here…it is amazing how much people are so much the same where ever you go…people living their lives, doing their work, raising their families…traveling, anchoring, whatever…no matter where you go…there you are!

A social day

We had a really nice day Friday and it was filled with new faces. We wandered over to the square in the morning because we had heard there was going to be a Childrens Parade for Benito Juarez Day...but no parade. But since we sort of stick out as gringo's we met the Chief of Police as he was preparing his troops for reviewal by visiting dignataries for the day...Sr Hector Clarke. So now we are dialed into the troops at the highest level...nice guy...we chatted for a quite a while in broken English and broken Spanish.

Then he introduced us to the Director of Tourism for Alamos, and we chattted a while with him on the street and he gave us a few tips for visting local Pueblos for Easter celebrations...not sure if we can get to them though because we have no car.

Last night we went to a local bar for some live music from some ex-pats and met a friend Louise that we had been corresponding with via the internet for the last few years...she lives here. She invited us out to dinner and bocce ball on Wed to her ranch outside of Alamos...we'll try to bike out there.

The table next to us chatted us up, and they ended up inviting us to their house on Monday nite for movie and a pasta dinner...they are projecting "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" on the wall outside the house at dark...sounds like fun. And....we met the owner of our dream house...Casa Esmeralda...dining alone, so we invited him over to join us...all in all a busy social day. Lisa said she needs a few days off now.....