Did we say it was cold in Big Bend? It hit 18F. in Creel, up by the Copper Canyons (Barrancas de Cobre). Fortunately the days were (are) sunny and cool. We drove from Creel to Durango, Mexico, along a winding climbing and dipping road through the canyons, which, as we mentioned before, are more expansive and deeper than the Grand Canyon. It was a sight we'll never forget and a drive we'll never repeat. Muchos curvas peligrosas!
The barrancas de cobre are the home of the Tarahumara Indians, who are reportedly shy and even hostile to outsiders. The ones we met were friendly, especially the women, but maybe that was because they were used to tourists and making a little money off us. It's easy to see how the deep canyon country can shelter some pretty isolated and isolationist types!
When we hit the flatland heading towards Durango, we knew we were in cattle country! We saw more cows there than we did in the whole state of Texas. Tad, we got lots of cow pictures. Hope some of them work out! We were lucky to be passing by this round up and lucky there was a place to pull off the road where Angie got this shot.
We're always amazed by the people we meet and how much we have in common with them. In Durango, we ran into Fred and Kaly, from Seattle. Fred plays the guitar and also has spent a lot of time on boats, and Kaly is a former ESL teacher. Mentioned to Fred that we had thought about painting La Gitana's name on her transom, and it turned out that he is proabably the most reknowned sign painter in the Northwest. People paid to fly him to San Diego to paint the transoms of their boats. In about 15 minutes, La Gitana was sporting her moniker.
By the way, those palms aren't painted in the back windows; they are reflections of the palm trees on the beach of Teacapan, on the Pacific, where we spent Christmas with a bunch of really great people. We've been invited to visit some of them in Veracruz, and in Gold Beach, Oregon, and we'll take them up on it when we get in their neighborhood (that will be this trip for Veracruz).Three days after Christmas we hit the road again heading for our Pacific paradise, Maruata. However, everyone in Mexico is on vacation right now, and half of them are on the Pacific Coast. We holed up in one of our favorite places, Sayulita (near Puerto Vallarta), waiting for the traffic to lighten up. We love the place. So do the Mexicans, and the campground is jammed with wall to wall tents. They sprout around us at night like mushrooms. Not usual environment (we prefer quiet, uncrowded places), but we can't say we aren't experiencing Mexican culture! When we got to Sayulita, the campground owner asked us who the gypsy (la gitana) was. Jim pointed to Angie, of course.
Happy New Year from the Fotogypsies!
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