I crossed into Tijuana seventeen days ago and I feel like I must have had a birthday between there and here. Mabye the best way to make two weeks seem like two months is to leave the country. I´m in Zacatecas now, a trendy little college town that looks more like Spain than what I used to envision Mexico looking like. I´ve gone down the Baja Peninsula and then crossed the Sierra Madre in the central Northwest of the country. I don´t have a story to tell about Baja: I unfortunatey beat the grey whales to their winter home near the shore in the middle of the peninsula by about a month, I didn´t have a car to go dune-buggying with, plus I wasn´t yet in the mood for a Spring Break reenactment in the party towns down south. So I made pretty quick work of it and took a ferry to the mainland across the Gulf of California. We call it the Sea of Cortez but he´s not as popular here as he used to be.

The highlight of the trip so far has been the Copper Canyon--Barranca del Cobre, which even has its own train. It´s one of the last classic train rides, the best and nearly the slowest I´ve ever been on. It runs from the coast to Chihuahua, ascending several thousand feet to the top of the canyon about mid-way, where I hopped off at a little town called Creel. I rented a bike and rode about fifteen miles down to a hot spring for a free bath and some good look out points into the canyon. At its deepest it´s deeper than the Grand Canyon and it seemed a lot more maze-like. It´s named for the color of the rocks rather than the metal, but silver was once king here and the mines funded the development of many of the region´s towns. Many of the locals are indigenous Tarahumara, about 50,000 of them in the Sierra Madre. You may have heard of them, some of the men run 100 or more miles in ultra-marathons. They used to hunt deer by running after them and eventually cornering them over the canyon cliffs where the deer would jump to their death. The Tarahumara still have a ceremony in which one runs an unmentionable number of miles kicking a ball, then passes it off to the next runner. I think they wear shoes now but that´s new.

"Its highest levels in 15 years."
Next I took a bus to Batopilas, a little town at the bottom of the canyon. The ride down was like the ones you´ve heard about--an old school bus skirting the edges of sheer cliffs. Guard rails?, well. Batopilas is the end of the line, no way out except back unless your truck can ford the river that drains the canyon. The terrain is so steep all the way down that Batopilas is wide enough for only one street paralleling the river. Buildings are either in a strip that separates the street from the river or the street from the canyon. I arrived on a Saturday, and since the bus didn´t run on Sunday I had two nights there. But it was nearly more. Although it´s the dry season the river had recently been at its highest levels in 15 years. A steady rain had started half-way along the bus ride and continued through the night. There was no rain in the morning but when I went for a steep hike up the canyon for a good look down on the town, it started again and mostly soaked me through before I could get back. And the rain continued throughout the day and into the night.

The owner of the guesthouse where I was staying rapped on the door around midnight yelling, "The river is coming!". The power was out and water was pooling just outside my door. I couldn´t see the river but we had to raise our voices to hear each other over it. From the level of the pool outside my door I could tell the river was tearing by just a couple of inches below the wall of the back patio. Fearing it would rise higher and knowing it could very quickly, another guest and I helped the owner move all the beds and mattresses from the lower rooms, including mine, to the front entrance which was probably a foot higher up. Everyone in town was awake, probably doing the same thing we were if not actually heading uphill. Half an hour later the other guest and I laid a mattress down and tried to get back to sleep but morning came really fast. By then the storm was gone, nothing but sun in the sky. The river had come back up a few inches above where it was and the floor of the lowest room was about 6 inches under water. The river was monstrous, the color of coffee with waves all over it probably 4 feet high and going about 40. From behind the patio wall the river appeared to be at eye level.

"A kid had fallen in and was carried away."
In the street the only conversations were about how much water got into your place and whether or not the road was passable. I was told the bus wouldn´t be trying it until the next day but that motorcycles and trucks would surely try as soon as somebody actually made it up or down. While I waited to hear about the road I went for a walk and saw a truck lodged out in the river with water flowing through the cab, and I met a Sweedish couple who told me they heard a kid had fallen in and was carried away. By noon the motorcycles and many trucks were firing up, so apparently a vehicle had made it. I gathered up my things and went to look for a ride and got picked up by a cattle truck. From up the road a couple hundred feet above the town, Batopilas looked like the most vulnerable town, like an ant a hair away from a passing tire, and the river looked like an extreme kayaker´s wildest dream. At every three or four turns in the road water a foot or two deep sprang from the gulches across the road. The narrowest point on the road was where a boulder the size of a car had landed leaving room enough to only pass on the drop off side. For this I moved to the back of the truck bed and leaned a little over the tailgate, ready to jump at the slightest jerk. The wheels must have passed inches from the edge. To my astonishment no point along the road had washed away completely, none of the gulches´ springs were unpassable and no boulders blocked the way. I think things might have been a lot different with just a few more hours or rain the night before.

Safely back on the rim I bussed out and down from the canyon into the central North highlands. I´m making my way back to the Pacific now, as much for the fish tacos as for the sun. Plastic Christmas stuff is everywhere but it sure doesn´t feel like that time of year. Travelling alone has been enjoyable so far and there´s no shortage of backpackers to speak English with. Plus Mexicans are respectful but far from shy and I´ve gotten to practice Spanish with quite a number of them. But more about people next time.

Happy Holidays,

Matt