Day 13

Feb 5, 2013 Batopilas to Creel

After great merriment the night before with music, fire water (moonshine from the natives) and dancing, we awoke the next morning to the calls of the rooster. It was before 4:00 AM when he crowed the first time.  
 
The night before, we also celebrated Lois’s 65^th birthday with a cake that the hotel staff and guides organized.  She was so surprised.

After eating a hearty breakfast of eggs and refried beans, we started on our journey up the canyon to Creel.   Our guide, Cesar, talked to a road construction worker and was told that they were blasting today and there would be a possible 3 hour wait on the road.  We all decided we would like to take the more scenic route back up the canyon, which was the detour or PLAN B.  It was 3 hours longer.  It didn’t seem too bad crossing the river on a cemented pad with water running over it.  As we climbed higher, we could understand what was meant by shake, rattle and roll.  The road snaked up the mountain with steep switch backs.  The views from different altitudes were breathtaking.  We saw the Urique Canyon as well as other canyons. We drove through river beds that were more bumpy than you can image. 

At one point after the rain last night, we were trying to avoid the mud puddles and got stuck.  We all got out of the van and the men surveyed the problem.  Some local men in a pickup truck came by and offered to help.  Together, the men pushed the van out of the mud. 

The roads were one-way traffic only in some places with barely enough room for 2 vehicles to pass. Another time, the brakes stuck on one of the vans and the men had to push it to get it unstuck. Since there were no bathrooms along the way, we made do.  The women went one way and the men went the other way.  We stopped many times to take pictures of the beautiful view.  

One of the vans was getting low on gas so we stopped at a small store in a town. They sold us 2 gallons of gas and we had to use a make shift funnel  (see photo) to pour the gas in.  At that same store, the lady let us use her private bathroom. So there was about 20 of us lined up to use it.  At that same little town, there were school children playing games.  The girls were running with sticks and throwing a ring on the road.  The first one that got to the ring was the one to flick it a few more feet.  The boys were kicking a ball with the same principal; whoever got the ball first got to kick it. We finally got to pavement and drove for another 2 hours to Creel. We arrived at 7:00 PM, glad to be back home and ready for another meal at the Hotel Margarita.

Conrad and Janet