creel to batopilas

We are in creel now. I finally feel like we are in a different country. We got up at 7 so we would have enough time to get packed, have breakfast and talk to the 3 Amigos about possibilities of getting out of batopilas via urique.

Turns out that it is possible if you are able to cross a waist deep river. We wouldn't be able to do that on our bikes with the skills we have, but apparently there is a guy with a truck that could take us across. That is, if he' s home. That is something we'd have to explore in batopilas.

We went to get more pesos from the bank and some tortillas avocado cheese and res de naranja that was just sitting in a kettle in the middle of the grocery store all caked in jelled grease. gruesome as it looked it turned out to be really yummy.

we set out around 10.30 and rode through some gorgeous mountains, all red and yellow and green and purple. I love the colors here. The roads are awesome too, very good pavement and corner after corner after corner and then another one.

After 50 miles or so of turns we turned off to the dirt road down the canyon. We had to go down a fairly steep rocky hill and cross a little bit of water right of the bat which gave us a good idea what we were getting into. So we slowly meandered down the rocky road, up and down and back and forth over rocks until it felt like I never did anything else. After 5 miles we had to rake all the layers off since it had warmed up a bit. Ok make that we started to sweat from the dirt bike work out.

We had to wait for a big construction thing to get done with whatever it was doing first to get through. From that point it was 2 miles how the crow flies as the GPS told us but 20 miles on the surface road to La Bufa. The altitude difference was about 4000, and a total of 7000 feet between creel and batopilas. The road was actually not too bad just really steep on parts dropping 20 feet between corners.

We went parallel to a river most of the time and enjoyed some amazing views of deep canyons, milky blue looking water with purple rocks and huge drop offs. If you had vertigo there would be no way to be able to go down that road. Alex is pretty much a newby for dirt and we were giving her pointers resulting in a very funny and embarrassing kind of dance type thing on how to stay loose on the bike. I'm not going to post the video, and it won't be on youtube anytime soon, lo siento, but suffice it to say that it was very funny.

paige's bike took a nap at one point as she likes to call it but nothing broke and there were people right behind her to help her up. When we got to La Bufa Alex was pretty exhausted and quite pale looking and the light was starting to go away since we started our day super late yet again so we decided that she get a ride for the next 20 miles with the same truck that helped us before, into Batopilas and Paige and I would haul ass to get to Batopilas before dark.

So that's what we did and she arrived maybe 45 after us in the truck when dusk hit. We had said we would meet at the zocolo and since the hotel we had recommended casas de minas real was right there it was easy. Martin the owner was in awe of us pulling on our bikes over a steep incline. The town of Batopilas is a very beautiful old mexican village right by the river. The guy that brought alex recommended us a restaurant that had stuffed trout. That sounded good to us.

And so we went to the trout restaurant. Walked into a room full borachos singing and drinking and we sat down in the courtyard and had some sol. Had more sol. And then ordered the trout. And a plato vegetariano para alex. We met many men there including but not limited to the cook the owner and the waiter.

The 20 year old waiter was the only one that would actually try to pick us up. He was really cute. But how do you say i'm 37 and I could be your mother? We told him that unfortunately we all had novios. After a while we left and walked around the village a little bit. It's beautiful and I am looking forward to exploring it more tomorrow. Since we couldnt find another open bar we retreated to the room and drank the bourbon that paige imported from the u.s.

We don't know what we are going to do tomorrow well see. Either riding more dirt riding or exploring the area via horses or just hang out. One thing is decided. We will make coffee in the room torrow morning since the hot beverage that gets passed off as coffee here just doesn't cut it and we do have a stove top espresso maker with us. Good thinking...