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!
