Monday, May 15, 2000
Got up at first light around 6:30 and walked around town. It
was too hot to sleep anyway, and the only time of day cool enough
to move around. I might mention that May is their hottest month, so
it’s not always this deadly. People were up and about, mostly
washing the streets and sidewalks. You have to wash the street when
you’ve got dogs and cows and chickens and pigs and burros running
around!!
Batopilas in the morning
We crossed the river and quickly checked out the ruins of the
Hacienda San Miguel, a relic from Balopilas's mining days. One of
the rooms toward the back was full of cows and drooling bulls, so
we didn’t go too far. We also saw a cute deer with a scarf on it
leashed to a tree. It looked to be a pet. How do you keep a deer
for a pet? The area looked to us like a prime location for a pot
field, so we hastily made our retreat.
The coolest street scene in Batopilas
After another five-hour teeth-rattling drive back out of the
canyon, we took a room at the other Margarita’s this time. Much,
much nicer, even had good food. Mercedes (her name is not
Margarita), the proprietor, gave us a break on the room since we
had taken one of her tours. We asked about buses, but no one at
Margarita’s knows anything about Creel unless they can make a buck
from it. Mercedes pretends to know very little English, but if you
ask about any of her tours, she suddenly becomes fluent. They
really do their best to make sure that if you spend money in Creel,
you spend it at Margarita's.
Nancy found out about a hike onto Tarahumara land and asked us
to go with her. Sure glad we did! 15-peso toll to enter. Brilliant
landscapes with rock formations shaped as mushrooms and frogs doing
it. I climbed a frog for a photo op. The sky darkened with storm
clouds, and it actually sprinkled while we were out there - this in
dry season! It was a beautiful, magical place. There were lots of
caves with cave dwellers, and a mission at the end of the road and
a school with solar panels.
Tom riding a big stone frog
A cave dwelling
Mission
In the evening we met some other travelers at Margarita’s bar
that were staying at the crappy Margarita’s. We drank and swapped
stories and laughed about "Yolanda" and the rest of the Margarita
crew.
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