Batopilas was our next destination. It was a long windy decent to get there and it tool a lot of patience to avoid burning up the brakes.
When we arrived we found out that there was no where to stay with secure parking. Normally that would just mean that we had to find a business that would let us use there restroom and we would camp on the street, but for some reason we both got a bad feeling about staying in this town. Maybe it was because there was a charity organization in town and that brought in a bunch of the surrounding villagers. Maybe it was the looks we were getting from the "mechanics" that looked a lot more like chop shops. Maybe it was the looks from the truck load of heavily armed young men as we entered town and the fact that they followed us around for a little bit. Nothing happened, but we didn't like the vibe, so we left.
Our plan was to drive the dirt track that goes over the ridge and into the neighboring, deeper canyon and the town of Urique. We didn't have enough day light left to do this, so we drove about 1.5 hours out onto the dirt road and found a spot to camp.
We were still feeling nervous. We know this is a heavy drug cartel area and it must have been playing with our heads a bit. We spent an uneventful night camped here and proceeded to Urique the next morning.
This road proved to be one of the more challenging of the trip with steep inclines and declines, tight turns, and lots of rain ruts and loos rock.
Our next stop was Creel. This is an interesting little tourist town with and old west feel. It is known as the place to get on the train that takes you along the canyon with spectacular views. Seeing as how we just drove through the canyon, we skipped the train ride and headed to the Basasichi waterfall. This extremely long water fall in a beautiful pine forest has some nice hiking trails and lookouts to enjoy. We spent the day there and camped in the parking lot.
