20,000 Page Views

Today, Blogger's statistics for Travels on Abracadabra show that we've had over 20,000 page views. 

Of course the statistics also show that there have been page views by:

• someone searching Google for "rusty tractor" who, upon reaching Travels on Abracadabra probably wondered "how did I get here?"; 
• at least two different anonymous "readers" who send invitations to suspicious-sounding blog addresses -- probably for the purpose of infecting our computer with a nasty virus (these, thankfully are blocked by Blogger); and
• the Crew of Abracadabra looking at prior posts while Blogger's "don't count our page views" feature was disengaged.

And Blogger's statistics aren't hyper accurate.

But even if, say, only half of the reported page views are real, human readers -- that still means that several someones out there are reading what we write. [E.g.; Blogger reports 89 page views from Brazil - how cool is that?] 

Many of those someones are members of the audience we hoped we would have: family and friends who are kind enough to tell us they are traveling along with us. 

But we don't have thousands of friends and relatives . . .  

So, on This Big Day in Statistics we would like to say to those of you we haven't met - whoever you are:

Thanks for traveling along. 

The Copper Canyon - Part 5 - April 18 - 28, 2015

From Batopilas we returned to Creel and checked back into the Casa Mexicana. Our plan was to take a westbound bus the next morning to the Hotel Mansion Tarahumara outside of the little town of Areponapuchi and near the train stop at Posada Barrancas. From there, the plan went, we would take some canyon rim day hikes and make a quick trip to the controversial Parque de Aventuras Brrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyons Adventure Park). 

The idea of an "adventure park" on the rim of these spectacularly wild canyons gives a lot of people heart burn - including us. One of the reasons we decided to take this trip was to see the canyons area before further Disneyfication of the area. 

And while we're not complete converts to the current state of development - we have softened our purist position. There are a lot of different ways to enjoy the canyons. 

But first we had to get there.   

The Bus - A Great Idea!

Between Creel and Posada Barrancas traveling by bus is cheaper and faster than taking the train. A bus trip runs about an hour and costs 100 pesos for two (approx. $6.66 U.S.); economic class train tickets for two cost 298 pesos ($15 U.S.) and the trip takes more than two hours. Clearly ours was a well thought out plan. 

But first the bus had to get to Creel.

When we arrived for the 10:15 a.m. bus we were told a car rally was blocking the highway to the east of town - between Chihuahua and Creel - and the in-bound bus was delayed; try again around 11:30. We left our bags in the office, bought a coffee and entertained ourselves watching the locals watch rally participants arrive.

Saturday Entertainment in Creel

Frustrating For Locals With Work To Do

At 11:30 we were told the rally actually ran from Chihuahua all the way to Divisadero and that no one was going by bus either to or from Creel for -- awhile. As we contemplated this information the westbound train arrived and two German guys we had been talking with grabbed their bags and ran for the train. A less energetic English guy left to check back into his hotel. We went back to the plaza to watch the rally activity, thinking that the rally must be over soon - cars had been arriving in town since 10 in the morning. 

Kid Heaven

  

La Costeña - A Favorite Salsa Brand and Rally Sponsor

Well, apparently a rally can last a long time. We bought tortas at the place we'd bought our morning coffee. The cook wished us luck. We checked in with the bus company from time to time. We took a picture of some Tarahumara saleswomen boarding their local bus. They had colorful clothes.  

Something To Look At

And finally, at 5:00 p.m. our bus arrived and quickly departed. Yes, sometimes self-directed travel requires patience.

The bus driver had no idea where our hotel was but several knowledgeable and kindly passengers made sure he stopped in front of a sign for the hotel. We couldn't see a hotel from the road - but several smiling people on the bus assured us we were in the right place. So we got off. 

Hotel Mansion Tarahumara 

We began to drag our bags up the steep and rocky incline that began next to the sign, assuming the hotel was up there somewhere. A guy came running down towards us, telling us to wait there. He disappeared but soon returned driving the hotel's van. We loaded in and held on as he executed a high-speed backing maneuver up the winding, steep driveway. He had apparently done this before . . . 

We backed into the parking lot in front of what is known locally as El Castillo (the castle) - for obvious reasons:

Evening View, El Castillo

The main lobby and restaurant of El Castillo are heavily Bavarian hunting lodge (complete with some coats of arms) except for a huge mural of happy Tarahumara people and a six-foot long taxidermied snake on one wall of the restaurant. HGTV would call it -- eclectic. 

But after our day wandering aimlessly around Creel we were happy to find a roaring fire and an open bar. 

Only The Roasting Boar Was Missing

Over the next couple of days we explored the hotel's sprawling property. It's clearly set up for large tour groups - and occupied only by small ones.  There was Molly and Bryce, some retirees from Mexico City, and, unexpectedly, Venezuela's Ambassador to Mexico and his entourage.  We found an empty indoor swimming pool and bar, an empty recreation room complete with a pool table and empty bar, and a second (empty) restaurant. It felt like the Delaware shore in the winter. We made use of the self-serve laundry, which we were glad to find as empty as every other place.  

Travel Tip: When booking a stay at El Castillo one is given the opportunity to pay for a room with breakfast or with both breakfast and dinner. We thought we might be walking into Areponapuchi for dinner and declined the two-meal option. It turned out we were too tired to walk into town for dinner - but the amount we were billed for dinner was no more than we would have paid if we had originally chosen the two-meal package.]

The operating - though largely self-serve - bar had a very pleasant balcony. After one longer than expected hike we spent an hour there watching hummingbirds stake claim to the feeder.

These Little Guys Are Quite Territorial

The hotel offers a complimentary shuttle van to the Posada Barrancas train stop and, every morning to the Parque de Adventuras Barrancas del Cobre.  

Parque de Adventuras  

The parque de adventuras is not yet finished and there are some pretty creepy plans in motion, including a giant canyon-side roller coaster (we saw some of the pipes that are going to be used for this). But we'll confess that we were much less distressed by the present level of development than we thought we would be.

The Panoramic View From The Park Center

At this point the adventure park development includes:

              -- The canyon-rim park center which straddles a crevasse in the canyon wall.

Look Up - It's The Park Center

The center has outside viewing balconies:

The View From The Viewing Porch

and inside there is a glass floor through which walkers can see the bottom of the cravasse straddled by the center. It is a big attraction for toddlers. 

Glass Floor - Very Popular With The Toddler Set

The center also has a gift shop, a restaurant and (always important) very clean restrooms. 

The gift shop carries a wide variety of I've Been There Done That merchandise, but the park has also set aside space for Tarahumara salesladies to sell their baskets and potholders. There are also non-Tarahumara vendors of general Mexican tourist tchotchke.  

Sunday At The Tourist Market - Vendors Killing Time

               -- An incredible series of zip-lines which we did not take. For those with more nerve than we, it's apparently a breathtaking ride. One portion of the zip-line series is currently the longest in the world - over 2.5 kilometers. A rider of sufficient body weight can apparently reach a speed of almost 80 mph on this section. 

We've always thought of zip-lines as a thrill-seeking thing rather than a way to appreciate nature. But a conversation Molly had with a Mexican woman who had just finished the zip-line challenged our assumption. The woman was still wearing her zip-line gear when she engaged Molly in conversation (in English). They eventually reached the routine, polite "where are you from" stage of the conversation, and her answer was "Mexico" (which in the Country of Mexico usually means Mexico City). Molly's comment was that the canyons were much different than Mexico. The woman smiled, looked out over the canyons, opened her arms and said, "Yes. I never even knew we had this." 

Clearly zip-lines can thrill in many ways. 

               -- Mountain bike trails for totally insane bike riders which include some X-Game worthy jumps. Our only experience of these trails was to hike one.

Saw The Jumps: 'Nuff Said

There are also rappelling and rock-climbing adventures for the AWESOME Adventure Group.


               -- A cable car over the canyons, which was just the sort of adventure we were looking for!    

Our Adventure Ride

Charming and Knowledgeable Cable Car Driver

. 

                -- And a hiking center at the bottom of the cable car ride where visitors can hire Tarahumara guides to take them on various day hikes into the canyons. Because we were planning on walking from the park back to our hotel we chose a short and comparatively easy hike - the hike to the Cementerio (cemetery). Our tickets for this guided hike cost 100 pesos ($6.66). 

This hike gave us a chance to see some wonderful canyon views.

Stopping To Take A Photo

We expected that our destination would be a flat spot in the side of a hill with colorful little mausoleums and lots of plastic flowers - a typical small Mexican village cemetery. But no. This "cemetery" is actually a burial place estimated by the park archaeologists to be 500 years old. The dearly departed was apparently left at the side of the trail and walled into the hill as protection from predators. It was a disturbing tribute to just how isolated this area was 500 years ago.

Bones and All

When we returned to the hiking center we found our path blocked by someone's flock of goats. The park has undoubtedly disrupted life in the canyons but the tenacioius Tarahumara continue to live as they have for years.

Yes? 

And the park has brought employment to some of the local people, even though many of the zip-line employees seemed to come from far away Chihuahua. We hope that more visitors will hire the local hiking guides.

Our Shy Young Guide

There are are couple of challenging day hikes that can be taken from this hiking center. One goes eight miles down into the canyon to a small Tarahumara town.


General Coming and Going Information: Everyone entering the park must pay 20 pesos ($1.33-ish) for el buen mantenimiento del parque (good park maintenance). We entered in the hotel's van and there seemed to be some concern about our plan to return to the hotel on foot. The van driver wrote on the back of our entry ticket that we were going to return to the hotel caminando (walking) and impressed on us the importance of holding on to this piece of paper. No one ever asked us why we were walking out of the park so we have nothing to report on why this notice might have been necessary.

The Walk To El Castillo

It took us awhile to figure out how to walk out of the park because we had arrived by van. We finally found a map of mountain bike trails, one of which - according to the map - ran right by our hotel. So off we went.

The trail was lovely, the afternoon was clear, and but for the occasionally niggling concern that we weren't exactly sure where we were going, it was a great hike. We shared the trail with a man delivering firewood in a wheelbarrow. We walked through a Tarahumara homestead and said hello to the pig (who apparently was the only creature stirring).

Passing Through

We passed another homestead where a young boy was pitching wood down from the main trail to the house. It was sobering to think of preparing three meals a day on a wood-burning stove. 

We passed the trail to the rim-side Hotel Mirador Posada Barrancas (for big budget travelers this hotel looks very nice). We figured the next trail up to the rim must be the one to El Castillo. So we began to climb and climb . . .  until we reached the top of the canyon.  

Looking Back At The Hotel Mirador Posada Barrancas

Looking Down on The Pig's House

But we were still clueless as to where our hotel was. We stopped an elderly (well - even to us) fellow and asked for directions to El Castillo. He sold us a cool rock he'd found in the canyon and gave us directions. It's all about meeting the needs of your market.

And Then . . .

We left El Castillo the next day and traveled by train to Fuerte where we found The Truck in good shape except for being covered with bird poo. From Fuerte we drove via cuotas:

• back to Mazatlan where we stopped for a few nights to say hello to friends;
• on to Tepic;
• from there to Guadalajara at which point we were concerned about some drug violence-related uncertainty which ultimately, for us, was much ado about nothing;
• and to Silao (another Hampton Inn); and finally
• to Guanajuato. 

We moved into our pretty little one-bedroom apartment along the Panoramica in Guanajuato on the 4th of May. 

Our Guanajuato View!

And here we remain until July. Our thoughts on Life in Guanajuato are next.  

The Copper Canyon - Part 4 - April 18 - 28, 2015

Into The Canyons

We knew that, in addition to taking in views of the canyons, we wanted to travel into them. 

Down Into The Wild

Our research found several options: backpacking tours, burro-supported hiking tours, local buses and public combi-vans to the town of Urique (of ultra-marathon fame) or the Pueblo Magico town of Batopilas, and guided tours using private transportation. We chose the guided tour option because:

• six months after hip surgery didn't seem like the right time to undertake the canyon descent / ascent, even with a burro to carry luggage (one tour company warns of a total elevation change of 1,500 meters / 5,000-ish feet); and
• even as frugal as we are, subjecting ourselves to a local bus or public combi-van on The Road To Batopilas seemed pound foolish.

Through our hotel in Creel we hired an English-speaking guide named Samuel (Spanish pronunciation: Sam-well) and a sturdy, new-ish four-wheel drive SUV. We had enjoyed our Creel area day trip using the services of one of the hotel's guides, so we had reason to trust that Samuel would also be a good guide and driver. And he was.

Samuel's Sturdy Ride

FYI, our three day adventure, including hotel, breakfasts and dinners, cost 9,000 pesos ($600-ish) before tips. A Big Name In Canyons Tours company charges over $900 U.S. to take two people on essentially the same tour, hotel or meals not included. [Travel Tip:Tours are usually priced for four people because the big expenses are transportation and guide/driver. Find fellow travelers and your trip will be more affordable. Trust in a less well known company, and your travels can be less expensive still.]   

The Road to Batopilas

Early in our drive Samuel informed us that he was a Baptist and recovering alcoholic and did not drink. And though we got somewhat tired of his one religious-themed CD, after a day on The Road to Batopilas we agreed that there were benefits to having a steady-handed driver who had renounced the evils of drink.

The road is almost all paved at this point, so the "OMG, we almost died!" reports about this drive that are sprinkled around the Internet can be discounted. But they shouldn't be completely ignored. Challenges remain. 

For the first couple of hours out of Creel the road was good and we enjoyed the spectacular views. We passed isolated farms that helped us understand the need for boarding schools for Tarahumara children. 

A Tarahumara Farm - Note 
Non-Combustible Engine Plow, Red Truck and Dirt Road

We stopped for a river view.

Bryce Viewing - Note Good Road

The View

We stopped for lunch at a place with a spectacular view of the canyons, and dined in the company of the Virgen de Guadalupe.

Lunch With Non-Baptist Approved Protection

The beauty of our lunch spot was, uh, somewhat disrupted when Bryce picked a shell casing from a large-caliber handgun from the ground. We didn't see any other casings lying around, so we decided to conclude that this was evidence of someone's enthusiasm for the spectacular view as opposed to . . . something else.

               Travel Tip / Warning: Our concern that this random shell casing might be evidence of "something else" was the result of a warning we found in all of the travel literature about independent travel in the canyons area. Everyone writing about this area - not just the usually scare mongers like the U.S. and Canadian state departments - advises against travelling outside of Urique or Batopilas without the company of a guide with local knowledge. The reason is that the canyons area drug business operators often use violence as a business dispute resolution technique. While travelers are not common targets of this violence, it is always possible to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And, based on our experiences in Batopilas (to come) - we strongly support this advice. 

Back to the Road: As we got further into the canyon the mountains began to fight back against modernity. In places, it seemed as though the roadsides was crumbling as quickly as the road was being built. 

Warning: Rock Slide Area

We eventually reached a point where the paved road ran out. 

Four Wheel Drive Territory

Construction was continuing to make progress, and sometime soon-ish (next year?) there will be a spectacular new bridge to cross. 

Big Job

Some four and a half hours after we left Creel our hotel was on the horizon. 

La Hacienda Rio Batopilas

The Hacienda Rio Batopilas clings to a hillside about two kilometers before the road enters the town of Batopilas. It overlooks the Batopilas river. 

Clinging . . . 

The property was originally the home of a local mine owner and it is located between two entrances to one of the area's many now-closed mines.

A Warning For Anyone Thinking Of Walking
Into The Dark, Dank Tunnel

The family that owns and operates the Margaritas hotels in Creel purchased the property, refurbished the old hacienda and added a wing of rooms. We stayed in the original hacienda portion of the property.

Original Hacienda Portion To The Left

NOT A Handicapped Accessible Property

The hotel is lovely - even though it was eerily empty during our stay (we were the only guests). Part of the charm is that it is in a very remote area - so if you go, don't plan on internet connection or television. One night we were without electricity for awhile (reading tablets with their own light - a good thing as long as the batteries last).

On our last evening road construction came within a couple of hundred feet of the hotel - with a bang. We heard the dynamite blast and ran to close our windows to shut out the cloud of dust. Thankfully, by the time we left the next morning the road was sort of clear-ish. Earlier in the day we had talked to a couple of road construction equipment operators who were returning to Batopilas, exhausted after a long, dirty day on the job. They told us the road was supposed to be finished in two months. We wished them buena suerte (good luck).

Comida Corrida Doña Mica

The hotel's restaurant is open only when a large tour is booked, and then staff is brought in from Creel. The breakfasts and dinners at the hotel in Creel weren't the high point of our visit there so we weren't disappointed with the idea of dining in Batopilas. 

Happily, we were way more than "not disappointed" with the little comida corrida (prix fixe) restaurant Samuel took us to. Doña Mica offers basic meals prepared with care and skill. Everything was fresh and flavorful and made to order. There isn't a set menu - the proprietress (apparently the daughter-in-law of the now deceased Doña Mica) greets guests with a recitation of what she can make. Doña Mica restored our faith in small town cooking! 

The entertainment at Doña Mica comes from looking through dozens of calling cards tucked under the plastic table coverings. We spotted a number of boat cards and we left an Abracadabra card. Let us know if you spot it! 

There are occasional power outages in Batopilas - but don't worry, Doña Mica has a number of Fanta bottles with candles to deal with this contingency. 

A Romantic Candlelight Dinner At Doña Mica's

Batopilas

Batopilas was founded in the early 18th Century and became a bustling mining town in the late 19th Century. The town is quite charming and is busily spending the restoration money made available as a result of its recent Pueblo Magico status. 

Downtown Batopilas

Colorful Homes

The Plaza

Ongoing Restorations

Pedestrian (And Wheelbarrow) Crossing

But Pueblos Magicos money isn't the only source of cash in town. 

Sicarios Sightings In Batopilas

One afternoon we saw a new pickup truck parked across the road from the hospital in Batopilas. Four or five young men wearing very sophisticated looking body armor and holding lethal-looking automatic rifles were sitting on the sides of the truck bed. At first we thought they were ejercito (army) personnel -- until we realized they weren't wearing uniforms. In response to our questions, Samuel explained that they were "men working in drugs" but that we shouldn't be concerned because they didn't want "anything to do with tourists."


We had read that we might see sicarios (the literal translation is "hitmen", but the word is often used to refer to general narco enforcers) in or around Batopilas, but it was shocking to us that they were parked, weapons on full display, across the street from a hospital where children were playing on the front porch. We never did find out why they were at the hospital.

That evening, as we left town after dinner at Doña Mica's, Molly saw one of these sicarios (or, in the interest of accuracy: a young man wearing body armor and holding an automatic weapon) sitting inside the open door of the municipal building. 

The next evening the truck was again parked downtown, with two armed men (the ones that drew that night's short straws, we suppose) sitting on the edge of the truck bed. 

These men are apparently a common sight in town. As people pass them, they avert their eyes. They are the classic elephant in the room.

Mision San Angel Custodio de Satevo

Tour guides like to call this former Jesuit mission in the tiny hamlet of Satevo the "lost cathedral". The story is that the mission, which was built in the 1760's to proselytize the Tarahumara was forgotten until the late 19th Century when it was "found" by miners traveling to Batopilas from Urique. Of course like many "discoveries" the local Tarahumara people knew the church was there all along . . . 

We had the experience of "discovering" the mission during an eight kilometer walk along the Rio Batopilas. It came into sight as we walked around a bend in the dirt road between Batopilas and Satevo . . . a beautiful old building in an unexpected place.

Hey, Look . . . 

We've Discovered A Mission

Our walk along the river was full of discovery. We found where some Tarahumara women do laundry, some local guys fish and others recreate (dropping into the river from a rope swing) and lots of cows and goats hang out. 

We saw more spectacularly isolated Tarahumara homes.

NEVER Complain About Your Commute Again

Hacienda San Miguel

Another "must see" in Batopilas: the ruins of a mining hacienda (a residence and the offices and support buildings for the mine) built at the end of the 19th Century by an American, Alexander Shepherd.  

Before he arrived in Batopilas Mr. Shepherd served as the head of the public works board of the District of Columbia and, subsequently, as the Governor of the District. But apparently he was so corrupt - he approved development projects in areas of the District in which he and his friends owned property -  or so incompetent, or both, that he was fired by Congress in 1874. A couple of years after he was fired he declared personal bankruptcy. Yet he still managed to have $600,000 in 1880 (back when $600,000 meant something!) to buy a silver mine in Batopilas. Hmmmm. 

Shepherd died in Batopilas in 1902. His successors abandoned the mine and the hacienda during the Mexican Revolution (1910 - 1920) and the hacienda was stripped of everything valuable. 

Today travelers can see some amazing ruins.   

The Ruins, Looming Over the Rio Batopilas

The Former Swimming Pool
(Yes, In The 1880's!)

The Stables

Intrepid Explorers Molly and Samuel

And if the story of a disgraced political boss becoming a silver baron isn't interesting enough, the hacienda is now owned by a man with plans to turn it into a hotel; bit by bit - by himself. We could hear him working inside one partially finished building while we were there. 

We hope he has more financial support for his vision than the 50 pesos people pay to tour the ruins. 

The Future Hotel Hacienda Batopilas

Dodgy Neighbors

There is another problem with the planned hotel at Hacienda San Miguel, which we discovered as we approached the ruins. The closest neighbors are drug thugs. 

The single-lane dirt road to the hacienda was blocked by the truck we had seen parked outside of the hospital and elsewhere in town. The truck was parked in front of a house and six or seven heavily armed men were milling around it. We suggested to Samuel that we might not need to go see the hacienda ruins after all - as interesting as they might be . . . 

Samuel once again assured us that the "men who work in drugs" weren't interested in tourists. He drove up to them and asked if we could pass to the ruins. The oldest man of the group seemed to be in charge. He directed one of the others to take the truck up to a turnaround and let us pass. He did, we did, and we made it to see the ruins. 

But we didn't stare or take pictures. 

The drug business in Mexico is a complicated issue - way too complicated to deal with in a travel blog. The thought that sticks with us is how public their display of armor was. And so casual it shivered our spines.  

Our other observation is that in a small town everyone knows everyone, even the scary guys. And everywhere life goes on: the building gets painted, the meal gets prepared, the road gets built, the clothes get washed and at bedtime prayers go out for the children to be safe.

* * * * * *

Thus ends the story of our trip to Batopilas and our first personal encounter with the drug business in Mexico. For those interested in traveling in Mexico, please note: No Tourists Were Harmed In The Making Of This Blog Post. 

Our next stop was a National Park. Surreal.