kori and matt are loose?

canyons, cowboy boots and cacti in chihuahua

korihahn — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:22:00 GMT

Ah, Chihuahua¨ is right.

It is a state with a lot going on. We just spent our first month in Mexico enjoying the incredible Cuidad Chihuahua, Barrancas del Cobres, and a few dusty towns in between lively with brightly colored anything-that-crawls cowboy boots always adorned with the Clint Eastwood white cowboy hat. We´ve survived countless off the bus on the bus, K9 sniffing, weapon wielding camouflaged militia checkpoints. Luckily we made it through.

The Barrancas del Cobre one of the most spectacular, jaw dropping beautiful places I have ever been. It is a world of its own. Huge scalpel-ed fissures slice open the earth making a serious of canyons four times larger than the Grand Canyon (or as the Mexicans call it ¨Rio Colorado¨) The tops of the canyon are pine forested and cold (in winter.) While in the bottom of the canyons, there is a dry, thorny jungle filled with scary looking crawling critters (tarantula, brown and black scorpions, snakes, bats, millipedes, and that is just the beginning of the list) The canyons are surrounded by huge cliffs and enormous cacti, a massive bright blue sky or a shooting star filled galaxy worthy of many hours for gazing. We stayed in the small village of Urique for 2 weeks with an 70ish, hippie expat, camping and gorging ourselves from his massive garden of fruits and herbs, saving lots of pesos by utilizing the nice kitchen and wild edibles. Hiking was a dream, and there is nothing more refreshing than a dip in the turquoise river running in the bottom of the canyon. ah Chihuahua. This is the epicenter for pot growing and being sent over to the states in tiny little cessnas (hence the obsessive searches), by the way!

From here we went to another village called Batopilas, which is an old mining town made of beautiful historic colonial buildings. We ended up hitching horrible 7 hour road out of there with a couple of conservationist, who we ended up staying with for a few days in a small dusty indigenous town called Guachochi, filled with the sandal wearing long distance runners- the indigenous Raramuris, who are amazing in too many ways to write about it. One night while staying with the conservationist, there ended up being 4 aid workers and 5 Raramuris´s spending the night at their house/office.... it was a fun little slumber party of 4 cultures under one roof. Did I mention the road to Urique and Batopilas is THE MOST INSANE THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. Not to mention the most prized Mexican pastime is to grab a 6er of Tecate. jump into their ´86 F250 ride around blaring tejano musica! A young girl died on that road in Urique while we were there.. and its no wonder why.

On November 2 was El Dia De Los Muertos, the day of the dead. It is absolutely incredible. Everyone (and i mean EVERYONE) goes to the cemetery and hangs out. They decorate the tombs with flowers and candles, sing songs, eat, in the evening, get wasted, and overall is have a jolly old time! Its kinda like a hippie festival, but instead of woodstock, NY, its at the local cemetery.

Now we are in Durango- a city. That is all I have to say about this place... yada yada... old churches, torta and burrito filled calles, and a few large plazas. That could sum up most of the Mexican cities though.

There has been horrendous flooding in the southern state of Tabasco, with as many people displaced as Katrina... but you probably still havent heard about it up there have you? Its surely not making the Fox News agenda... not while Brittany is having a custody battle or shooting her coochie around, shameful! Anyhow, its a horrific incident, and its nice to see how the mexicans are in the streets gathering money, bottled water, diapers, foods, etc. There are parades and blood donation centers everywhere, even in some of the small villages in the bottom of the copper canyon.

All and all, Estoy habliando muchas espanol, puedo hablar com todos para muchos tiempo! esta bien, si?

Adios mi amigos, hasta luego!

houston to chihuahua

korihahn — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:55:00 GMT

hola, como estas.

and after 8 years in spanish class .probably more actually. what ive learned is... i still dont know a damn thing, besides all the cuss words of course! sad but true...... i was raised in texmexico, what do ya expect!

a few days ago matt and i left downtown houston (probably the seediest of all the places we have been thus far) and loaded up on the unknown Amtrak. We rode through the beautiful texas countryside finally reaching El Paso an enjoyable 20 hours later. We started bargaining right away, and got a $15 discount at the Holiday Inn (who thought you could bargain in the states? well... then again, im not so sure that el paso is in the states still.... you can count the gringos on one hand) anyhow, el paso was actually an enjoyable town (from what we saw from a quick walk to the nearest ATM)...

and then... we walked across the bridge! we got off the bridge (only being stopped to pay the 2 peso bridge toll)... and there we were in Juarex Mexico, home to 350 missing women, drug cartels, and .... well, a serious lack of a prominent immigration office.. at least it seemed. We literally got over the bridge and had to search around for awhile to find somewhere to check us into the country, it was quiet the task. you would think that after traveling so much recently we´d be on the ball, at least in these sorts of situations, but there we were... never fails... looking like silly white tourists once again! (hey- at least were consistant)

then 5 hours through the desert and ...

Chihuahua Mexico, a wonderful town in the midst of the chihuahuan desert. Located in a lovely valley with rocky dry mountains surrounding a beautiful little plaza with a gorgous ancient cathedral and a plethora of brightly colored cowboy boots made from ostrich, alligator, gringos, whatever they can find, and always adorned with an enormous hat. we found an average hotel for a few nights. where I did manage to master the art of yelling at the top of my lungs "shut up, i cant sleep" a few times in spanish to the blarring latino music (and the mexican singing along as loud as he could) at 2 am, which i was pretty proud of.

We rode the train a few hours today, heading deep into a canyonland known as the barrance del cobre. We departed in the Tarahumaran town called Creel at 7500m, with cool rock formations and friendly brightly colored indigenous people wandering around. Tonight after dinner, on the walk home I managed to play the one mexican song i knew for a group of mexicans! i took the laughing to be a sign that they were amused... i assumed it was similar to a big german singing "hear comes the sun" in a strong chu and ghu accent... now that would be pretty funny!

hasta luego amigos! te amo bendejo (haha)..ADIOS!

Gallery: Mexico

korihahn — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:57:00 GMT

North to South with the sandhill cranes