The Hotel Guerro in El Fuerte was uplifting to my spirits, although the pillow still sucked. A steal at 10us dollars a night including breakfast.
We awoke early on the morning of Jan. 9 with the intent of riding to Barranco de Cobre (Copper Canyon), a canyon that is larger in every dimension than our own precious grand canyon. The plan was to ride to the small village of Batopilas and then follow the ridiculously steep road to Creel climbing so 6000 feet. We would then stay at Creel and return to El Fuerte the following day. Our map didn’t quite show the road connecting all the way to Batopilas so we set about town to find a map with more detail. Nada. So we asked so locals how to get there and it seemed pretty straightforward so we headed on our way. 12 hours later we were back at the Hotel Guerro, utterly filthy, wasted tired, thirsty and hungry. As it turned out the road to Batopilas is fairly simple if you know where it is, which it seem after asking dozens of people along the way very few people do. Some of this epic day could easily be attributed to the fact that we never clearly understood that when folks kept repeating “la mina” (mine) that there was actually a mine in that gap on our map.
Our initial directions had us heading to the end of the pavement about 45 minutes from El Fuerte where there would be an obvious fork and a sign. We found a fork and a rusty old flattened sign but the direction was definitely not obvious. We asked some folks that were hanging around and then a car that we had flagged down. Despite there finger pointing we took the other fork. 10 minutes later a Kawasaki ninja 500 with treacherously bald tires comes speeding after us. In the true Mexican spirit the guy we had talked to in the car ran home and grabbed his bike to catch us and show us the way. He took us back to the fork and then proceeded to ride his bald tired street bike about an hour up the sandy dirt road that supposedly led to Batopilas. He waved us off as we continued on our journey on the steep and dusty road that wandered into small villages, vast hilltops, and deep canyons. Cattle and donkeys wandered along the sides of the road. The ruins of a few beautiful churches served as a reminders of long ago successful efforts to change the ideologies of the indigenous peoples of this area. The small villages were an indication that strong hearted people are still able to eek out a subsistence lifestyle off the land.
We asked almost every other car we saw and seemed to get conflicting opinions on which way to go. The all seemed to agree on one thing though…la mina. After stopping for a snack I forgot to lock my rear case and as a result lost my locks somewhere along the dirt track…sign #1. An hour later Jamal was staring oddly at my front fork. I asked what was wrong and he said “I think one of your fork seals is leaking”…sign #2. A few hours later we arrived at the end of the road, or at leas the end of our trip to Batopilas. Two locked gates and a really nice guy with a really big gun blocked our passage forward…grande numero tres! The guy carrying the Ak-47 was a guard for the mine and headed back to his post to make a few calls. He returned and said that we could pass and be escorted through the mine where the road continued in some fashion to Batopilas. I have been told by a mentor of mine that when things occur in threes its time to start paying attention, so while I believed the passage would be safe, it was time to turn back. Dust clouds filled the air and rocks shot off our knobbies into the sunset as we sped our way back to Hotel Guerro for a second night.
No comments:
Post a Comment