26 Oct 2007 – Basaseachi Falls camp ground. 91437
Cold – 25 degrees but I sleep hot. Up at 6:00am. I cook grilled Spam, English muffins and cheese for breakfast.
We are off at 8:15 am. Another bright sunny day in Mexico.
We drive to the Basaseachi Falls overlook then on to Creel via the rock/gravel back road. As we reach the highest point and start down we start running into road construction. They are widening the road and planning on paving it. It will be nice some day.
We have lunch at a small cafe in San Juanito.
We reach Creel at 2:30. The hotel Margaritas is full so we stay at the Hotel Parador Montana.
Creel is at 7700 feet and the temperature is 72.
GPS: 94.6 miles in 4:39 hours at an average speed of 20.3 mph
27 Oct. 2007
Creel. This is to be a day of rest. We are up at 6 with sunrise at 6.50. It froze again last night. Another bright sunny morning.
Breakfast at the motel. I had machaca (scramble) then we did a stroll along the main street. I stop at an Internet store and check my email.
Everyone does their own thing until noon when we drive the 25 miles down to El Divisadero. Divisadero is a tourist train stop with a great view of the canyons, a fairly fancy motel on the cliff edge and a series of hand craft stalls to satisfy the tourists wanting to exchange peso’s for baskets, etc. We play the tourist. There are also food vendors cooking on converted 55 gallon drums. We snarf down a variety of goodies.
As we start back, Frenchie hits a rock and puts a huge gash in one of his tires. A short stop to put the spare on and we are on our way back.
We have a group dinner at one of the local restaurants. While we are there, a two man band comes in and serenades us. Wish I had brought my earplugs.
This being Saturday the main street is packed with kids cruising their cars up and down the street and the sidewalks are filled with people just walking and talking. There are several sidewalk vendors selling hamburquesa’s and bacon wrapped hot dogs. A hamburquesa is a very thin hamburger patty with cheese – quite often in a torta bun.
GPS: 54.5 miles in 1 hr 51 min. 29.4 mph average speed.
28 Oct. 2007 Sunday Odometer 91591
Up at 6:00am. Cold but it does not appear to be below freezing. We have breakfast at the motel. Another bright sunny morning.
Today is the day we begin our descent into the canyons. We will drop from 7700 feet to about 1500 feet. It should be a lot warmer tomorrow morning.
We leave Creel at 8:00 am. We drive south on a good paved road then turn off onto a dirt road for a short drive into the very small village of Cusarae. A small but well stocked store there has a tourist shop at one end. We do the usual peso’s for basket exchange then look at the large well maintained church. Across from the church is a newer set of buildings that appear to be a mission/school. A closer look at the village shows that it is better off than most Mexican villages. There is electric power and even a few satellite TV antennas on several of the houses.
We spend about an hour in the village and then back to the pavement and south. We see a lot of Tarahumara Indians walking in this region. (Because it is Sunday?)
This area consists of high mesa’s and as we continue south, we slowly twist our way down one and back up another. After doing this several times we stop at a Pemex gas station and top off. This will be the last gas station we see for the next three days..
We talk to bicyclist from Houston. His goal is to bicycle all the way to Argentina. I think he is insane for bicycling on these narrow roads. His blog is at http://bicycleexpatriator.blogspot.com/
After leaving the Pemex station at 11:00 am we proceed down the pavement about a half mile and then take a right hand turn onto a dirt road that is being rebuilt. A 6 kilometer detour and we are back on the dirt road leading to Baptopilas. It is 64 kilometers (40 miles) from the pavement to Baptopilas and I have read it takes 6 hours to reach there. At this point it is a standard Mexican dirt road – an unmaintained one lane, rock/dirt, rough and twisty road. Oh – and did I mention the dust? We bump our way along following the top of the mesa and seeing occasional houses and even a small village. The road goes thru a narrow wooded canyon and then into a more open canyon while slowly dropping in elevation.
We have come quite a ways in two hours and don’t have far to go to reach Baptopilas. I’m thinking we will be there in about a half hour. Frenchie brings us to a view point for a lunch stop. We get out and look over the edge. Whoa Molly – it is a LONG, LONG way down a VERY steep hillside. We can see the road switch back down and then onto a cliff of narrow canyon and across a bridge we can barely see. The road crosses the bridge and then starts to climb the opposite cliff. Hmmm – maybe it will take a little longer than a half hour to reach Baptopilas. Frenchie says it will take 2 ½ hours but I am still doubtful. How bad can it be? We are about to find out.
We start down and after several switch backs the road widens slightly until we near the bottom and enter the cliff section. The road narrows here and we meet an oncoming vehicle. I try to squeeze against the cliff. Not quite enough room for the vehicle to pass so I back up to try and get a little closer. Bam – I have backed the canopy into the cliff and busted out a small window on the side of the canopy. Damn. The vehicle passes and we continue on down stopping after crossing the bridge to apply a cardboard, plastic and duct tape repair to the window. After a half hour we are on our way again.
Now the road gets serious – very narrow, continuously following the contours of the vertical cliff. We go along up the cliff, down the cliff, etc for a LONG time with Frenchie in the lead letting us know via the CB when there is an oncoming vehicle. The CB is a god send as it gives us time to try and find a small widening of the road to pull over and let the vehicle (usually a pickup or stake bed truck) pass.
It was 11:00 am when we turned off the pavement and it is now after 3 pm with dark coming about 5 pm. I DO NOT want to be on this road after dark. After several eternities then canyon begins to widen slightly and we are no longer driving along a vertical cliff, just a steep hillside and finally we drop down to where we are not too far above the river. At dusk (4:30 pm) we round a bend and see what appears to be a large Spanish style villa built into the hillside on the left of the road. It has two large buildings, verandas etc. Frenchie says it is the Hotel Margaritas just outside of Baptopilas. He checks and it is open and has rooms available. Halleluiah (Now we only have to squeeze into the hillside for a parking space.) The hotel rooms look like something out of an old movie. Several hundred year old wooden doors, high ceilings, completely tiled bathrooms, etc. A GREAT place to spend the night.
We unpack and then drive a half mile down river and then cross a single lane bridge into Baptopilas. Baptopilas is a town built along a very narrow strip of land between the river and the steep hillside. We stop at a small restaurant on the edge of town. Wise decision as this is about the only place we can park in the entire town. The restaurant appears to have a very limited selection available so we all end up ordering hamburqeusa’s. They were pretty good.
Frenchie is towing a trailer and cannot easily turn around so we continue into town. The street is narrow with cars parked on it. This the main drag so passing an oncoming vehicle requires one of the vehicles to pull behind a parked pickup or find a small random spot to pull over. It is full night as we are driving and a number of families are standing/sitting of the small side sidewalks. The town slowly widens as we approach the center. I think there are a total of three parallel streets at this point. We make a slow turn around the town square (a very narrow street/alley to make a 90 degree turn into at the end of the square) and slowly head back to the Hotel Margaritas.
During the night and early morning I hear various vehicles pass by. Must be ‘interesting’ to drive the canyon at night.
GPS: 86.6 miles in 6 hrs and 18 min. driving time. 15.7 mph average speed. Odometer 91677.