Days 48 Through 50: Hiking From Urique To Batopilas

With our bikes safely stowed away at Entre Amigos, we headed out around 7:45 am with a bag full of burritos made for us by Maruca's sister.  Not too long after, we passed the first town where some locals were already half drunk and singing songs plucked out by an older cowboy on his guitar.  At the next juncture, we found out from a couple guys that we could take a shortcut over a swinging bridge to start the climb out of the canyon and then it would join our plotted course.

Emmanuel poses for me while crossing the bridge.

Gonzalo coming up from behind...

A few parts of the trail obviously suffer through the rainy season, we found the makeshift supports to be a little frightening.

Despite the heat, I found the hike out of the canyon to be easy walking and we arrived at the ranch Los Alisos de Torres around mid-day.  Tomás had told us to tell the rancher Don Prospero that he had sent us and that we would be welcomed and that they would give us fresh water.  What he didn't tell us was that it would be a refreshingly breezy oasis in the middle of desolate and dry climb out from Urique.  We were greeted by palms, mango trees, grapefruit trees, grapevines, and some of the nicest people we have met so far.  We ended up staying for about four hours we loved it there so much... Don Prospero stayed and chatted with us, served us coffee grown and roasted on his ranch, offered us bananas from his banana trees, and even pulled out a bed for me to take a siesta.

We also discovered that Los Alisos serves as a water point for the Caballo Blanco ultramarathon and our hike was part of the marathon route.  One of the primary legs of the ultramarathon is to run from Urique to Los Alisos and back and it was neat to have hiked that part.  I would later find out that our route back would also take us on another leg of the ultramarathon, but that's a story for a later post.

Gonzalo and Emmanuel enjoy the shade of the grapevines.

The three of us decided to shell beans for Don Prospero and chat about life, the universe, and everything.

These were some of the best bananas I've ever eaten, served up in a handwoven Raramuri basket.

While the boys napped, I played with a local Raramuri boy who was taking shelter from the heat with his mother.  They live about a two hour walk from Los Alisos.  He was fascinated by my animal imitations.

We finally tore ourselves away from Los Alisos once the heat of the day had passed and continued on fortified by fresh spring water and a lovely rest.  We profusely thanked Don Prospero and gave him a small tip as a sign of our gratitude.  He seemed embarrassed that he had little else to offer us and tried to send us off with tortillas and beans, but we had plenty of food already.  Instead, we accepted a few bananas to take with us on our journey.  From here, the views were stunning as we hike to the summit.

Emmanuel taking in the view.

The trail becomes a bit more rugged, but nothing too hard to navigate.

We got to an area a bit before La Yesca where the trail connects with a dirt road and set up camp.

We got a late start the next morning because we were relishing the cool night air.  While eating breakfast, the boys said they needed to get water at La Estación, a nearby ranch just past where we were camping that Tomás had identified as a place to get water.  Gonzalo thought I had overdone it when I said I had nearly three liters left.  Pshoo, I said, better safe than sorry so I took a lot of water at Los Alisos in case there was no water at La Estación.  Turns out, no one was home at La Estación so we had to hope to come across some other ranches.  Our maps showed that there was some sign of life at Piedra Redonda so I started conserving my water and hoped that we would have some luck there.

Nobody home at La Estación.

The long beautiful waterless road to Piedra Redonda... we missed a turn off for a trail and ended up staying on the road, but  we knew both would take us to Piedra Redonda.

Guillermina and her daughter Guadalupe live in Piedra Redonda and welcomed us with cool refreshing spring water and some shade.  She even offered us beer, but we knew it would be a bad idea.  We stayed a bit to rest and chat and learn a bit about their life there.  We are not the first ones to come across their home, turns out a while back, a pair of bike tourists also stopped by her house.

A local animal that is supposed to be delicious... oh wait, that's Emmanuel.

A view of Piedra Redonda... Guillermina tells us that there are five families that live there.

We learned from Guillermina that if we talked to another family that lived in Piedra Redonda, they could show us a shortcut across their property to start a more direct descent into Batopilas.  So we headed over to the other ranch and were greeted by a large family who showed us a steep climb up through some pine trees to the trail.  Each of the family members wished us well and off we went.

Lunch among the pines before heading down.

Emmanuel is part of an adventure club and takes the opportunity to show off a bit.

Taking in the view of the Batopilas canyon (photo credit: Gonzalo).

Rocky technical descent.

I don't remember where this was, but we found a huge water reservoir being filled from a spring.  We took the opportunities to cool off a bit.  Shortly after this, we came across a party of some friendly Raramuri ranchers.  We asked them what the party was for, they said it was the yumare, to ask for rain  They invited us up, but we declined because they were all pretty drunk (which is traditionally a part of the yumare) and moved on.

Back to the road to Batopilas.  By this time, we just stuck to the road although we did see some parallel footpaths.

Gonzalo and Emmanuel found themselves running low on water again and were once again saved by a friendly local family just outside the small town Cerro Colorado.  There we learned that the drug trade had actually dropped dramatically and was no longer a viable option for many people, and that the gold mining industry was all that was left.  We inspected some bits of rocks with gold speckled through them, and then sadly learned that they process the rock with mercury to remove the gold and wash the byproduct into the river.

After asking about the possibly camping along the river Batopilas near this family's property, we decided to head into Cerro Colorado to pick up some supplies to supplement dinner and camp somewhere on the other side of town.  Emmanuel saw a garden with swiss chard and the woman gave him a huge bagful for free.  Gonzalo and I went to the store and like many isolated communities, there was nothing but canned food... until we spotted a papaya sitting on the shelf.

The local school... posters were written in Spanish and the Raramuri language.

Time for dinner... mmmm fresh papaya.

Zona de hamacas.

Since we had lost time relaxing at Los Alisos (well worth it!) and sleeping in the day before, we still had a good half day of hiking to get into Batopilas.  The heat was oppressive and we were all exhausted and ready to be done.  Gonzalo was struggling immensely with the heat and Emmanuel and I both were suffering from our shoes.

Typical water jar which are made by the Raramuri and are designed to keep the water cool.  The folks at here had wonderfully cool spring water that we all took advantage of about an hour or two before Batopilas. 

Success!

We wandered along the long stretch of town to the plaza and found a cheap hotel, showered, grabbed some cold beers, collapsed for a bit, and then asked around town about getting public transport or hitching a ride back to Urique.

A few travel notes for cyclists:

• It is important to note that this hike requires a base level of hiking endurance to cross from one canyon to another.  The trails are steep going both up and down and the additional weight of any camping gear (we did well with just our hammocks and sleeping bags and left our tents behind).  We hiked around 60 kilometers, though I think it's a bit less if you actually stick to the foot trails.  Because we on a dirt road for much of the descent, we hiked quite a bit more distance.

• Tomás told us that it is possible to camp at Don Prospero's ranch Los Alisos and it's certainly a wonderful place to spend a significant amount of time.

• We had brought a water filter and iodine drops to treat any water we found (which would later become essential), but at this time of year, all the streams and waterfalls are dry, so you have to depend on spring water.  Although I could get away with about 4 liters per day, Gonzalo was drinking up to 12 liters in a day in the heat.  We were highly dependent on the kindness of strangers because the spring sources are not readily apparent.  I saw this as a silver lining because had there been abundant water in the streams, we wouldn't have had a reason to get to know these amazing people.