Day 59 – Long day driving to Mapimi
It was rather loud last night as we had been parked right on the main street, but the noise died down around midnight. Crawling out of our warm blankets, we had breakfast in the central market and then set off for a long day of driving. Today took us through hundreds of kilometres of desert – vast flat lands of cactuses and occasional “trees” that look like Joshua trees, but we’re not certain. This is the Chihuahua desert – the largest in North America, taking up much of northern Mexico.
Lunch was gorditas at a gas station where we also were fortunate to find a shower – “Pits” service station. We continued on until sunset where we stopped at a gas station in the middle of the desert. There were tables, chairs, and a faucet where we cooked our dinner and then went to bed.
Day 60 – Another long day to Creel
Muesli was on the menu for breakfast today, before setting off back into the desert. The roads were long and straight and we arrived in the town of Cuauhtemoc in time for lunch. Interestingly, Cuauhtemoc is home to a large Mennonite community. Many are of German origin, had moved to Canada, and then left Canada for this small town in northern Mexico.
We are still losing coolant, even after changing the water for proper antifreeze, but not as fast as before. I can normally see a small drip under the engine on the passenger’s side of the car. We went to a repair shop and after struggling with car part terminology in Spanish, learned that it could be the pump that’s the issue. We think we might get it looked at properly and then replaced before crossing back to the US as labour is MUCH cheaper in Mexico (we’ve been told about $30/day here compared to $60/hour in the US). Changing the pump requires removing the whole engine, which will be time consuming.
Finally, we made it to Creel just in time for sunset. It’s a long weekend as “Dia de la Revolucion” is on Tuesday, which they describe as equivalent to Independence Day in the US. The town is completely packed, we queued for 20 minutes for tacos, and then had some typical corn with mayonnaise, cheese, and chilli, and then a peanut-chocolate beverage (“champurrado”).
Day 61 – Recowata hot springs
Last night we were very discreet sleeping in the Best Western parking lot. It’s a private gated lot, and we felt very safe here, but didn’t want to be caught. After breakfast in a local restaurant (huevos rancheros for Viki and sausage scrambled eggs with tortillas for me), we spent the morning in the beautiful lounge of the Best Western. There’s a huge hearth with a roaring fire and high vaulted wooden ceilings.
We then departed for Recowata hot springs, an hour or so drive from Creel. With no one else in the car park, we picked the best spot, then hiked the 45 minutes down to the bottom of the canyon. Here there were cement bathing pools constructed, capturing water springing out from the rocks. A dog escorted us back up the path and was kind enough to show us the short cuts. We named him Peter. We finished off the evening with a perfect campfire and dinner outside on our camp table and chairs. There was even a branch perfectly overhanging that we used to hang our lantern.
Day 62 – Barranca del Cobre adventure park
Setting off early, we drove the half hour to one of the key features of the Copper Canyon – the adventure park. It’s rather commercialized here – there’s the longest zipline in the world (at 2.5km), mountain biking, via ferrata, and rock climbing.
We splurged, relative to our normal spending, and spent $30 each on the 7 zip line tour, which took us over 7 different zip lines, ranging in length from 150 meters to 1.1 kilometres, interspersed with trails and suspension bridges, to a return gondola. It was a 5km trip with 3km of ziplines. It was great fun and we were in a group with two other Canadians who were spending four months motorcycling down to Panama.
We set up camp in the secured dirt parking lot that goes right out to the canyon edge. There was enough wood to make another campfire, so we read our books for a bit, right on the sheer cliff of the canyon, followed by our typical dinner of tuna and vegetable curried pasta soup.
