Mainland Mexico June/July 2006

[Hltoppr]

The toll roads down the West coast are pretty boring, but good for making time. If you'd like to see some better stuff, head down on the smaller, inland roads. Additionally, if you stay at altitude, it may be a bit cooler!

-H-

 

[LexusAllTerrain]

Cuauhtemoc is the first major town on the highway from Chihuahua City toward the Copper Canyon and the spot where the toll roads end. We saw lots of differing information, but the population appears to be between 50,000 and 100,000 people. The town has a similar look to a midwestern U.S. farming town. You'll begin to see more Tarahumara Indians here and a large group of Mennonites also live in the area. The Mennonitas arrived in the area in the 1920s from the U.S. They still run farms and related agricultural businesses around Cuauhtemoc. Most of them speak both German and Spanish, but little English.

Just west of Cuauhtemoc you'll find a road heading north toward Gomez Frias and Obregon. Go north about 20 km on this road and you'll pass several Mennonite camps before reaching Camp 6 off to the left. Take the road about one mile to the camp and you'll find a cheese factory where you can sample and purchase Mennonite cheese.You will have a great time exploring!
I can not fine some of the picture I have, sorry!

 

[articulate]

:sunny:

I used to be a shoot-from-the-hip traveller, but I've located myself this book to help with the camping:

This should be a big help if we are ever uncomfortable with remote camping in a certain area.

10 days and counting for the launch off.

Bought a poncho and sandals, I threw away my shoes
Brought a toothbrush and a razor I probably won't use
I hit the track, turned my back on the headline news...

If everything goes well, I will not wear a shirt for for two weeks straight.

Mark
:suning:

 

[DesertRose]

I've had a little progress. Thanks for all the input.

We're leaving on June 24, and will be back in U.S. July 12.

Has anyone been to Cuauhtemoc, near Chihuahua? I'm interested in visiting the Mennonite community there. I would also enjoy seeing Paquimé in addition to some "back road" opportunites.

!Salud!

Mark

For a short time I ran some trips for Betchart Expeditions to Copper Canyon, and one of our stops on the way back out of Creel on the way to Ciudad Chihuahua was the Mennonite community.

Unfortunately, the information I can offer is not altogether great: I found it a poor experience, largely because we were small groups (up to about 10 people) that stopped there for lunch. Betchart paid the community elders committee, and they organized a lunch for us. It was Soooooooooooooo weird. They set up a long table for us in a tool shed, and then about 4 women and 5 girls proceeded to serve us lunch - without saying a word! They did it by rote, and were not at all friendly - it was so canned. They're a very closed, somber society. My clients were very uncomfortable, especially after the extremely open, friendly experiences of the Mexicans we'd met in the canyon country.

If you "freelance" it - it might be better. Since they were doing it for money for us, it was not good.

I would guess that with your open and friendly manner, you would get somewhere, especially with the men, who were a bit more gregarious.

They make good cheese, though!:eatchicke

Cuauhtemoc looked like a lot more fun. It's the apple capital of Chihuahua, and very busy. I wish we could have hung out there more.

Which way are you coming out? Any thoughts of going through the plains of Janos - largest prairie dog town in North America, and the last herd of buffalo thought to be related to the original NA plains buffs.

I envy your trip!! Some of my best trips were there, especially scouting without all the whiny clients

 

[DesertRose]

If everything goes well, I will not wear a shirt for for two weeks straight.

Mark
:suning:

Well if THAT doesn't get the Mennonite women to lighten up, I don't know what would!:jump:

 

[DesertRose]

This should be a big help if we are ever uncomfortable with remote camping in a certain area.

I promise, no more smartaleck remarks.

One of the things I did when travelling down there alone (one vehicle) when we wanted to camp, we sought out a nice ranchito or farmstead and asked to pay to camp on their land, usually within sight of the house or maybe just a bit away. They almost never accepted the money; twice we got fresh tortillas and fruit sent down to us, and once a couple of little girls came down and hung out shyly watching us for an hour or two and then spontaneously starting singing to us!

I LOVE travelling in Mexico!

 

[articulate]

My goodness. You're cracking me up, girl. I wonder what my wife will wear..... :Wow1:

Thank you soooooooooo much for your input...smartalek remarks and all.

I'm really excited about this ranchito camp idea. That's superb. Several years we camped on the beach at Puerto Lobos and had a similar encounter as you with a local fisherman who insisted we come to his house for breakfast.

"?Que prefieres? Tortillas de harina o maiz." The entire experience was quite mind-blowing (for a modern-day Americano) because the man's wife and daughter cooked over an open flame, hand-made all of the tortillas, fried fish fillets, provided a wild assortment of fresh vegetables, and served us her own salsa. And the food never stopped coming.

I'm still embarrassed to say that I eventually had to speak up and say (after a thousand thank yous) that we couldn't eat any more. It seemed as long as we were at their table, by golly, that woman was going to cook and cook and cook. And it was a challenge to get them to accept payment for the meal.

I think that's fantastic that those little girls sang to you. It's like you can't possibly invent a story out of thin air that's as good as the real stuff that happens on a drive through Mexico.

So, you mentioned Janos and after a quick web search that looks like a neat place. We'll have to check it out. We don't have a single hard plan for what to do when coming back, but your suggestion will make it to the list of things to consider.

Thanks again, Roseann. Your comments reminded me not to be so concerned about the camping. Here's to life. :beer:

Mark

 

[DesertRose]

Several years we camped on the beach at Puerto Lobos and had a similar encounter as you with a local fisherman who insisted we come to his house for breakfast.

"?Que prefieres? Tortillas de harina o maiz." The entire experience was quite mind-blowing (for a modern-day Americano) because the man's wife and daughter cooked over an open flame, hand-made all of the tortillas, fried fish fillets, provided a wild assortment of fresh vegetables, and served us her own salsa. And the food never stopped coming.

I'm still embarrassed to say that I eventually had to speak up and say (after a thousand thank yous) that we couldn't eat any more. It seemed as long as we were at their table, by golly, that woman was going to cook and cook and cook. And it was a challenge to get them to accept payment for the meal.

What a great story! We spent some time in Puerto Lobos over a summer when we were in college (85 or 86? can't recall) - looking for Least Terns nesting there (no one had verified it). It was un-be-liev-ably hot. A very friendly little village, and really really poor. We were treated to coffee at one tarpaper shack - another custom, coffee, even when it's literally 120 degrees inside. We got the only 2 cups, a couple of chipped Corningware teacups, and it was Nescafe instant - a real honor, as it is very expensive and considered the ne plus ultra for honoring guests. It was tepid, oily, watery - and magnificent.

[You made me hungry for grilled fish and salsa, so I guess that's what we're having tonight!]

 

[articulate]

I can't tell you how fired up I'm getting after reading your posts. Thanks.

Hilarious that you are aware of Puerto Lobos; "Is that near Rocky Point or Acapulco?" is what every one asks me. Once I was talking with an old sailor before my first trip to Lobos. He was a riot.

"So, Mark, where in Mexico are you going?"

"A little village called Puerto Lobos."

"Oh man, Lobos. Mmmmmmm God, Lobos. Lobos. Oh man, LOBOS." He had to prop himself up against the wall, he got weak just thinking of the place. Perhaps a tale of lost love - and found love - involved with his experience there.

It was tepid, oily, watery - and magnificent.

That's beautiful. You are, I'm sure, aware of John Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie: "A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ."

Thanks again for your stories and your input. They're worth a lot to me.

Mark

 

[DesertRose]

You are, I'm sure, aware of John Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie: "A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ."

That's a fantastic quote - no, I don't know that one, though Steinbeck is a huge favorite, and not because of being force-fed a steady diet of same from 7th grade to 12th. He was a man with a true sense of the human condition - best to worst, and everything in between.

You know, you remind me I need to dust off some Steinbeck and do some retro-reading.

Log of the Sea of Cortez is an all-time favorite, of his non-fiction.

A favorite quote to share (it's long, apologies, but I think it fits the general theme of discovery and exploration here on Expedition Portal)--only Steinbeck could articlate natural history's relationship to the cosmos and spirituality so perfectly:

"Our own interest lay in relationships of animals to animal. If one observes in this relational sense, it seems apparent that species are only commas in a sentence, that each species is at once the point and the base of a pyramid, that all life is relational to the point where an Einsteinian relativity seems to emerge. And then not only the meaning but the feeling about species grows misty. One merges into another, groups melt into ecological groups until the time when what we know as life meets and enters what we think of as non-life: barnacle and rock, rock and earth, earth and tree, tree and rain and air. And the units nestle into the whole and are inseparable from it. Then one can come back to the microscope and the tide pool and the aquarium. But the little animals are found to be changed, no longer set apart and alone. And it is a strange thing that most of the feeling we call religious, most of the mystical outcrying which is one of the most prized and used and desired reactions of our species, is really the understanding and attempt to say that man is related to the whole thing, related inextricably to all reality, known as unknowable.

This is a simple thing to say, but the profound feeling of it made a Jesus, a St. Augustine, a St. Francis, a Roger Bacon, a Charles Darwin, and an Einstein. Each of them in his own tempo and with his own voice discovered and reaffirmed with astonishment the knowledge that all things are one thing and that one thing is all things -- plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planets and an expanding universe, all bound together by the elastic string of time. It is advisable to look from the tidepool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again."

That quote totally bowled me over, in my late twenties. I began to look at the world in a whole new way after that one. How many writers can any of us say that about?

Seriously high on our lists of future expeditions is to recreate the voyage of the Western Flyer - the sardine boat that carried Steinbeck and Ricketts on their voyage.

Have a great trip, Mark, and I hope you'll keep a journal and share it with us - you have much to add to this forum, and the true spirit of adventure and discovery! Thank you for your posts!