Creel to Batopilas

Saturday 3/31/2004

Breakfast in Creel. Dad and I in a party room in the motel common building.

My tire was flat this morning, so we went to a tire shop and got it fixed. Then we went to a store for some supplies and then headed out.

Getting a flat tire fixed in Creel. Adjusting everyone’s tire pressure – always a big hassle.

Some pictures with the Turtle Expedition truck.

As we were heading out of Creel Alfonso spotted the Turtle Expedition truck, and got as excited as we saw him on the entire tour. I hadn’t heard of them before, but it sure was an awesome truck. We got a little tour of it from the owners Gary and Monika and it’s amazing – no expense spared to have the best expedition truck possible. The most interesting thing to me is that the canopy (?) on the back of the truck is made from a fiberglass and plastic sandwich material (I forget the name) and according to Gary the material for it only weighted 350 lbs (minus all the hardware of course).

The road part of the riding was beautiful again – lots of curves and good scenery. Then it was onto the dirt.

I noticed lots of people sitting by the road-side on roads where hardly any cars would go by, and assumed they were waiting for a bus or something. I asked Alfonso about it and he said no, that most were simply sitting their for the diversion of watching people drive by. He said people with bags were generally waiting for a ride somewhere, but the families without bags were out there for fun. I also noticed lots of people walking out in places where it was a long way between villages and towns. There’d be kids out 10 miles from anywhere just walking along with no packs or water or anything. I guess that’s not too big a deal but is just kind of surprising relative to my way of life.

I had a couple close calls with oncoming trucks, as did a couple other guys. Those trucks were driving pretty fast for a curvy 1-lane dirt road. Funny thing about the trucks driving by – they were all really nice. I was pretty much expecting poor people in beat up old 1970’s Ford trucks or something, but these guys were cruising by in beautiful 2004 Ford Lobos and stuff. I have it from a reliable source that there are pretty good odds that MJ is supporting a decent amount of the local populace.

Bob, Jay, Dad, Ryan, and Jay (picture by Alfonso up on a trail above the road.)

(Note that the picture backing this thumbnail is 400Kb because it’s the full size 1600x1200 picture.)

Here’s the most spectacular viewpoint we hit on the trip – our lunch spot. It was the first view we got of the canyon and is close to where the road first emerges on the canyon side.

Another shot from the same place.

Lunch time: tortillas with cheese, avocado, chipotle peppers and a spectacular view.

Another shot from lunch. Here’s a shrine at our lunch stop.

A view across the canyon from the lunch spot. A truck jam on the road below us. The far side of the canyon from the road down.

While we were having lunch there was a traffic jam (4 trucks) on the road below us. It looked like a truck tried to pull off the side to let another one pass, pulled off a little too far, and got stuck. A driver that stopped and talked to Alfonso mentioned that a little Tequila might have been involved.

On the way down into the canyon the worry about oncoming trucks increased. Add that to some fist-sized (really slippery) gravel, a very narrow road, hairpin turns, and some steep cliffs off the side and I think pretty much everyone agreed that they were gripped coming down the road into the canyon. I remember one time riding around an inside corner on the outside tire rut (so leaning out away from the mountain) and looking down into a ditch eroded into the road and seeing down about 2000 feet. That got my attention!

Some burros on the road down to Batopilas. Dad on the road above the river. Dad in front of a prominent mesa.

Seeing the burros wasn’t too big a deal, but the fact that there was nobody for miles seemed strange. Alfonso said that yes they were very valuable, but people didn’t have to watch them all the time because stealing them is so serious a crime that nobody would do it. There were lots of goats around too, also apparently unattended.

Another interesting thing was the women out in the streams washing clothes, and we also saw some natives (Tarahumara) walking along the road. They dress differently than the normal Mexicans. The Tarahumara men wear brightly colored skirts. We saw a Tarahumara man and a boy (presumably his son) walking down the road about 10 miles out of town. The man was carrying a drum. We didn’t find out where he was going, but it could have been anywhere because the Tarahumara are in some cases living in caves on the canyon walls.

A shot of Dad showing the canyon behind. Batopilas across the river.

The ride down the canyon was pretty hot – maybe up into the 80s or so which gets compounded the slower you have to ride and the harder you have to fight the bike to keep it on the road. I ended up in just T-shirt and light pants. Bob on the other hand had compensated for the previous snow day by wearing long underwear, jeans, chaps, rain pants, sweatshirt and riding jacket. “Man that was hot!” he said later, “my crotch was smokin’!” Hmm, that doesn’t sound very comfortable. I had more than a few aches and pains and temperature related issues from some pretty long days of riding, but Bob and my Dad, despite both in their mid to late 60’s, both handled it better than I did. Couple of very tough guys.

We met up before crossing a bridge into Batopilas, then cruised in and through town to the hotel. On the way through town lots of young boys came out and hi-fived us as we rode past.

Recovering from the ride in the motel. Dinner in a home-restaurant.

We didn’t stay in the planned hotel – it was overbooked evidently, so we ended up in another hotel also owned by Martin and I think we lucked out. The place we stayed had a great common area and we had it all to ourselves. It had lookout onto the street and central plaza below – it was great.

A picture Jay took of the Batopilas central plaza.

Dinner was in a 1-room restaurant that was a room in somebody’s house. The stove was wood-burning, which I thought seemed pretty inconvenient. The dinner was great, picadillo beef w/veggies, rice, beans, and a bucket of Tecate cans that Alfonso bought across the street. The city had been dry (no alcohol) previously, but now the rules have changed and restaurants can sell alcohol. Guess this particular one still didn’t.

After dinner we hung out in the plaza for a little while and enjoyed the evening. Then we went back to the hotel and I crashed.

Hanging out in the plaza.