Day 51: Batopilas

Urique and Batopilas are like two bizarre parallel universes nestled at the bottom of their respective canyons.  While both towns feel like places out of time, Batopilas feels too clean, too picturesque, too perfect, and oddly reminiscent of the town in the movie Pleasantville.  Brand new pickup trucks pass through the streets.  Kids skip through the streets in their matching uniforms.  On the plaza are dozens of little girls led by nuns dancing and singing religious songs.  When we ask where to buy beer, the storekeeper looks at us with disdain and tells us we have to go to a bar, as if to say, where only the bad people go.  Oddly missing are the ubiquitous street carts selling delicious antijitos.  We found out that conservative Manuel Goméz Morín, who founded the National Action Party along with the Roman Catholics, was born here.

Morín was born here.  Just across the street is the store where they gave us dirty looks for asking where to buy beer.

Antique Coca Cola sign out of time.

Our first order of business was to figure out how to get back to Urique.  We thought we may be able to hire or hitch a ride back, but after spending all morning asking around town, it seemed that no one went towards the direction of Urique.  The one public transport option out of Batopilas headed to Creel and then take two days to make our way on buses get back to Urique.  One guy said he would take us to La Yesca for an exorbitant price.  Another said he was going to Urique, but he had to wait for some friends to arrive to Batopilas and he had no idea when they would arrive.  We could also wake up at 4 am, start walking up the road and hope to hitch a ride, but if we couldn't it would be a long waterless road to arrive to La Yesca.  None of these seemed particularly appealing.  I started feeling like we were in the Twilight Zone and that we were never going to get out.

When chatted up the shopkeeper at the general store near the main plaza, he recommended a local guide named Don Librado who could take us to the summit.  We went to Don Librado's home and talked to him.  He offered us a fair price to take us with a pack mule through the more complicated southerly route we had seen on Tomás' maps to a point where he would show us how to descend back to Urique.  After some thought, we decided this wouldn't be so bad, since we wouldn't have to carry our packs up the worst of the climb.

The antiquated cash register at the general store across from our hotel.  The shopkeeper was friendly and proudly pulled out a copy of a small town U.S. newspaper which had his picture in it.  The article featured Romayne Wheeler, a German composer and pianist who built a house atop the Batopilas canyon rim because he was so inspired by the views.

Emmanuel enjoying an ice cold orange beverage given to us by the little girls after they finished their religious song and dance performance.  This was actually taken the day we arrived, I figure posting pictures out of chronological order is no stranger than this town.

Sunset on the plaza the we arrived.

After we finalized our plans with Don Librado to be our guide for the hike back to Urique, Emmanuel and Gonzalo both expressed an interest in going to the old Batopilas Mining Company ruins.  The history of this mining company is fascinating.  It turns out that the "glory days" of Batopilas started when the former governor of Washington DC Alexander Shepard purchased and consolidated over 350 mining claims into the company.  As a result of investments made by the company, Batopilas had the first hydroelectric plant in Mexico and was the second city in the country to have electricity, second only to Mexico City.  Batopilas was also the first town in Mexico to have telephones (although they were an internal circuit for the company, they would not have external telephone service until 1995).  The company went into decline when the Mexican Revolution started in 1910.

View of the Hacienda, which served as the central operations for Shepard's company. 

It was a bit confusing figuring out how to get in... turns out you have to go around to the house and pay the family there to go in.

Emmanuel is fascinated by natural house constructions because he builds earth and adobe houses.

We also found the outhouse!

This girl was our caretaker.  She followed us everywhere and made sure we didn't do anything we weren't supposed to do.

Baby moo moo!

The ruins were full of tree roots overtaking the structures.  These reminded me a bit of the trees at Angkor Wat.

Crossing the Batopilas river back to town from the mines.

We arrived back to our hotel just in time to melt into a senseless stupor as the hottest part of day arrived.  Later, we would make a half-hearted attempt to find a dance we had heard about, but called it quits early so we could make our 4:30 am wake-up call to start hiking back to Urique with Don Librado.

A few travel notes for cyclists:

• I'm pretty sure there is actually a way to hitch a ride back to Urique as we bumped into a guy we had seen in Urique who had hitched a ride to Batopilas.  The only thing is that I think you need to wake up at 4 am and know the community, who goes where and at what time.  As tourists, it may prove exceedingly difficult.  This is to say, if you are going to hike to Batopilas, make sure you are prepared to make it a round trip! 

• Bolis are a delicious treat on a hot day.  They are basically flavored icey concoctions. My favorite was pistachio.