Death Ride To Batopilas

Have you ever experienced shear terror, no control over the situation and your survival was based on solely on faith in a bus driver you don't even know? Well I have and it was on our ride down to Batopilas. The forecast was for rain, sometimes they close the road to Batopilas when it rains too much. That Monday morning the bus was still scheduled to go, so we went for it. Holy Crap was it scary, the most frightening ride of my life and it only cost 200 pesos. It would have been scary had there been no rain but all the more excitement and terror! The road, only wide enough for our bus, crawled down the canyon and then aways through till we got to our destination.

Just the Beginning of going down.

Shear drop offs, not for the faint of heart.

Drivers little helper, removing debris form the road so we could pass.

Even with the rain, the experience was amazing.

View of town upon our arrival.

When we got to town we first got a place to stay in a house that had a couple of rooms owned by a nice couple who spoke English. Unfortunately for us, it was right along the river which was flowing at biblical proportions due to the heavy rains. At night trying to calm Jess down my quote went something like this, "We're going to be fine. We're at the bottom of the deepest canyon in North America, it's been raining for two days, the river is flooding, the road may get washed out. We're going to be fine." Well that night we had our bags packed and ready to go if the water crept over the crumbling wall of the house we were staying at. It did not, but we stayed at a different place the following night, more for creature comforts like, a/c and a bathroom without the shower head pointing at the toilet.

If you can read it, its cool. "The Man and the Woman"

We found a guide named Arturo, perhaps a common name in this area. He spoke very little English, I speak very little Spanish, good thing we have Jessica! He brought us on a tour of some of the local sites, the first one being an old mission that was built and abandoned and then use by Jesuits coming to the area for their missionary work. An interesting note, the woman who was the care taker of the church for many years, she, along with her family, are buried underneath the floor of the church. The church now is under renovations and is being used by the locals.

View of Mission de Satevo from afar.

Mission de Satevo... can't you read.

Jess looking cute at the mission, what a back drop!

A view of town from across the Rio Batopilas

This is how we got across the Rio Batopilas

Jessica and our guide Arturo in front of the mine of San Miguel.

Ruins of San Miguel's property.

Dondé esta el baño? Aqui!

Mas Ruinas

The Aqueduct built by the former Governor of Washington D.C., Alan Sheppard, who came to this area and helped spiff it up a bit, allowing it to be the second place in all of Mexico to get electricity.

Our favorite restaurant in this town was called Belia's. A lot of people leave their business cards underneath the plastic table cloth. I guess I am no different.


Click on this one and get an idea of our location.

Oh yeah baby, Batopilas truly will be with me for the rest of my life, just getting there was worth the experience not to mention the beauty we found when we got there. Thankfully the weather cleared up on us and we found ourselves safe and at the bottom of a beautiful canyon.
For the small size of the town we found it interesting how many nice trucks and even some Hummers we saw there. That could be due to what drives the local economy. Lets just say it is a perfect climate for growing certain types of plants and that we also saw some military folks busting through town going after some of those "plantations".
The ride out was almost as exciting as the way in but with out the rain. The scariest part was when there was a truck, abandoned on the side of the road was unmovable and preventing our passage or so we thought, but our faith in the Bus driver prevailed. He was able to squeeze past the truck with the bus, just enough as to not slip off the cliff we were driving on. I will say this, when he made that move Jess, myself and none of the Mexican stayed on the bus. We got in after he made the move and with our applause's. Although it was beautiful I tried to sleep off a little of the terror, we also had to be up at four a.m. to catch the bus. So I caught some Z's and we eventually made it back to Creel where we were to catch the Chepe train as we continued to go through the rest of Copper Canyon.

The Vortex Of Creel

After a five and a half hour bus ride and again, getting confused exactly where our stop was we arrived in Creel. Creel is a small town that is the starting off point for travellers who want to experience the wonders of Copper Canyon, north America's deepest canyon. It is actually a series of five canyons that come together.

Creel offers several places to stay, we found ourselves at Casa de Margharita's, a back packers hostel. For 250 pesos we got a nice clean room and bathroom, also including a meal. They offered tours and really try to get you to take them, almost pressuring you to take them. Jess and I on the other hand did things our way and did some self touring.

The Hostel was nice and we were able to meet some great folks traveling in the area as well. We met a crew from Texas that worked trail crew in Big Bend National Park, they were here for the Columbus day weekend. We met up with them at first in the one bar that Creel has to offer, Tia Molcas and then saw them the following days we spent there as well. There was also the lone New Zealander, the couple from the UK and another lone traveller from Denver, who is travelling as far south as he can till his money is gone. Everyone has their story and around the dinner table and over a beer it is great to hear all of them. I can't forget to mention Arturo, the Hostel manager guy,he was pretty awesome, he loves Oreo Cookie ice cream and I can totally relate.

Branching out on our own, Jess and I did not succumb to the tours offered by the hostel. They are the same tours that every place else offers as well, so we did our shopping and decided to rent some mountain bikes and check out the local sites on our own.

The bikes were descent, rented from the 3 Amigos tour company for about 90 pesos for a half day, that was all we needed to get our mission done. We headed out of town to do a 20 km loop. Our first stop was at some cave dwelling of some local Tarahumara Indians. These are the native people of the area, reminding me much of the Quechua people I encountered in Peru. These people are some of the fastest and most enduring runners in the world, not the ones we encountered though. But they are known to literally chase their prey till their prey tires and then they go for the kill, sometimes with their bare hands. The ones we did encounter were in their homes which are cave dwellings in the rocks of the area, lots of rocks and caves in this area.

They are in fact very poor people living very simple lives, doing what needs to be done for daily survival. I pondered if I ever could give up the world I know and live a life like this, it would be tough for sure. They are also known at least to the tourists, for their handy crafts and weaving abilities, so almost any were you come into contact with them they have some thing for sale, some craft of some kind and usually pretty cheep. And then there are the cutest little kids that run up to you and say, ¨un peso, un peso?¨

Moving on... we visited an old mission, San Ignacio. It was a satelite church for the area that did not have its own priest but instead priests would go out and visit the local people so that they could have some place to worship their new found God.





In the same are as the Mission were two areas of rock formations, the Valleyof Mushrooms, And the valley of the Frogs. Yep you guessed it the rocks looked like mushrooms and frogs, pretty exciting.

Jess getting eaten by a giant Rock Frog!!!







About another 5km from there we got to another area of rocks known as the Valley of the Monks, but unlike the other rock valleys we visited I would not say monks would describes these rocks. As it was mentioned in our Lonely Planet guide, it was more like the valley of Erect Penises. Either way it was a really cool area and we had a great lunch of tortillas and Jess's homemade Guacamole. Our bike adventure took us to the lago Arareka. This in the past was a natural spring that got dammed up in the fifties to give Creel a water supply which to this day has never been use as a water supply. The name Arareka supposedly was the Tarahumara word for horseshoe, as the lake looks like a horseshoe but Arturo from the hostel told me it was the Tarahumara name of a flower that was at the site of the spring, a beautiful yellow flower that no longer exists.

Our days adventure ended by heading back to Creel, returning the bikes, grabbing a meal and catching up with our new amigos from the hostel. The night concluded with a visit to a group of Tarahumaras who were celebrating their founding father in this area that died a long time ago. Part of this ritual that they do, which happens once a year on the aniversary of his death, is that they drink some form of alcoholic drink made from corn and some eat peyote and everyone dances all night, seriuosly all night and into the morning, and to the sound of some really bad fiddle playing. They wore elaborate colored costumes with head dresses or something like that. Their everyday clothes are pretty vibrant colored as well. It was interesting to see this event, but after about twenty minutes you got the gist of it. That night ended with Arturo convincing a few of us to play Yahtzee with him instead of going out to the bar. I think it was a ploy so that we would spend our money on beers from the hostel, which is smart on his behalf.

That next day in Creel was Sunday, and as I had been checking out some of the local religions and traditions of people I thought it would be nice to accompany Jessica to church, and that is what we did. We put on our travellers Sunday best, for me it was a pair of sneakers, my Colombia titanium quick drying pants, and a long sleeve shirt I got in NZ, which is light weight and drys quick as well.
The rest of that morning was a necessary lazy morning. That afternoon we rented a guide to take us out to a large waterfall in the area about an hours drive away, called Cusarare. Our guides name was Manuel and he was pretty funny, I couldnt understand all that he said, as it was in Spanish, but his mannerisms and body language proved enough to make me laugh and have a good time, and of course I had Jessica to fill me in on what I didn't quite grab. The interesting thing about our trip to the waterfall was that Manuel, our guide, stoped by his house on the way out of town, at his house he picked up his son. Manuel is in his seventies and his son, his fifties. His son is mentally challenged and it was good that he was able to get out of the house. He proved to be quite entertaining for us, not really being able to carry a conversation but like a parrot singing phrases back to us, ¨No, problema, no problema.¨

The night ended with some Helados (ice cream), and a beer at the bar, saying good bye to our hostel friends as we all were headed in different directions the next morning. So on Monday Jess and I finally escaped the vortex of Creel and caught a local bus to Batopilas, an old mining town at the bottom of Copper Canyon. It was the second town in all of Mexico to actually receive electricity, strange fact there, but Holy Shit the ride down there........

Ah, Chihuahua!!

Well, after about twenty four hours of no sleep, we finally got our bags packed and where on our way to the airport. About eight hours later we arrived in Chihuahua.


We spent our first two nights there and planned for our next adventure. The hotel we stayed at was called Hotel Santa Maria. It was nice, clean and was like a freaking sauna. The use of the ceiling fan with the windows opened did a good job at resolving that. It cost us 150 pesos per night, roughly $11.50US; that was for both of us. We definitely shopped around and found this on our fourth place we looked at.


I absolutely appreciate and love my girlfriend whom Iwould be so lost here without her. Her Spanish is muy bueno! We have been practicing a lot with me and I have already successfully order a cervasa, and some pollo con arroz.


The one full day we spent in Chihuahua was pretty awesome.


We went to the "Grutas De Nombre De Dios," Name of God caves. Just getting there was an adventure; taking public buses, because we are cheep and walking a mile down a dirt round on the outskirts of town. But we we got there and signed up for our tour. We did not have any idea what we were about to do, at least I didn't. We went underground on a guided tour of an amazing series of caves that once were mined for silver and gold but now preserved for tourism. The rock formations in there were incredible, some looking like the leaning tower of pizza and other like dinosaurs, stalactites and stalagmites abounded. Really beautiful.


That evening we went to a truly beautiful park in Chihuahua for a music concert. This year and this month, Oct. 2009 is Chihuahuas 300th year anniversary, and to celebrate, free music almost every night on the month. They love there music, the band Chicago is even playing of the 15th, really too bad we are going to miss out on that one!


The band we did see was called Raviäd, from Guadalajara, they were a band with eight members each playing multiple instruments and with a very worldly sound. They are an amazing band with two female vocalists, one of which had seriously a voice of an angel. Unfortunately she lacked in the stage presence department in the light of the other band members. She literally just stood still on stage for 2 and a half hours, but who cares her voice blew us away.


Our last day in Chihuahua brought us to the bus station were we purchased tickets for Creel, our starting off point for the Barrancas de Cobre, Copper Canyon. Here in Creel we have finally seen other Gringos doing similar things.Interesting Photo. It kind of asks the Questions, ¨What really is a Gun¨