5 3 BACK TO THE US

After 3 nites at San Carlos we headed back toward the US. We had learned that we, who call ourselves Americans, should be calling ourselves something else. We do not come from all of the Americas, but from the United States. So we need to come up with something other than "Americans" to identify ourselves. How about "United States-ers". Any other ideas?

Another long bus day. We stopped at an ironwood shop, where they carved the very hard ironwood. Of course we had to buy something, you know, to support the local economy. We bought a Caracara bird, in rememberance of our float trip.

Anyway, we had no trouble returning across the boarder. Some of us were worried about the US not wanting us to come back after being in Mexico. No such problem. We went thru a Mexican checkpoint where they asked if anyone wasn't feeling well. We were all fine. The guard did scan our carryon stuff, but no problem. When we got to the US border all of the luggage under the bus was scanned, like at an airport. Again, it took a little time, but no problem.

The next morning, the 4th, we drove up to Laughlin, NV for a little rest and laundry doing.

Having taken care of both, we are now, on the 7th, in Delano, California, north of Bakersfield, on our way to Sacramento, to stay with Dick from our trip. We should be there by tomorrow nite.

That is all for now. More later on our path to Seattle.

4/30 to 5/3 SAN CARLOS

On the way to San Carlos we had lunch at a woman's home in Navajoa, Senora. Yes, this is a private home. We had been to a Mormon community, seen a Mennonite home, an indian home, an old hacienda and Pancho Villa's house, but this was the other side of the coin. The bathroom, one of them anyway, has a sunken tub that the daughter used to snorkel in as a child. Lunch was delightful, probably the best on the trip. We drove on to San Carlos on the west coast of the mainland. It is next to Guaymas. It is the equivalent of Telluride's Mountain Village, a resort near a town. Debbie and I stayed at a Club Med there once, right after it opened. Good thing, it turns out, since it has closed.

It was another long bus day and we were very pleased to arrive. The hotel is lovely.

The picture below is of a mountain near our hotel, the "Goat Tits" That is not the real name, but the commonly used one, and we can't remember the real one. It is a sacred mountain to the Yaqui Indians. But, there is starting to be development up its slopes

We stayed in the hotel on the far side of the bay. It is very nice and we spent 3 nites there. On both Friday and Saturday nites there were weddings on the beach, with the celebrations afterwards. We were OK with the partying, that is until the fireworks:)

Hope you can see the pelican in the picture and his shadow on the water. There were lots of pelicans flying around, as well as turkey vultures. We wondered if they knew something we didn't....but all went well.

We went to the site of the old Club Med, where they had done a wonderful job of landscaping. What is left at the entrance is a beautiful cactus forest. Below is just a sampling. Then you can see a Sterns Oriole sitting on a blooming cactus (not a bad English word, actually blooming)

4/29 EL FUERTE AND SAN CARLOS

The down of El Fuerte, the fort, is where we got off the train from Copper Canyon. It sits on the El Fuerte river, which is the home of many birds. In the 1700's there was a fort there, but there are no remains of that fort, so the city built one as a museum. In the evening we had a folklorico show that was delightful. In the background is our hotel. It was originally part of the nearby church and has been expanded recently. As you can see it is quite lovely. The room we had was interesting. It had two doors, because if you had one door it didn't have enough room to open, so they split the door in half. It was so small, that Duane had to remove his backpack to get in and the door hit the bed when you opened it. We had to get out of each others way to move around...but the hotel was lovely.

We went on an outting to see petroglyphs and birds. These are some of the petroglyphs we saw. Very different from American ones....very Mexican looking. Our guide did not know how old they were. Some were just recently discovered.

Birds, boy did we see birds from our rowboat. This is a cardinal, obviously.

This is a great blue heron, nesting in a tree. The entire tree was filled with then and a couple of egrets, all nesting. Some had babies.

On an island in the river, were all these black vultures. There didn't seem to be any dead animals around, they just seemed to like this island.

This is a turkey vulture. We have them at home, too.

Here are 2 baby egrets.

And 2 baby herons

We went with our local guide German, pronounced Herman, to a native village where he grew up. We visited a lady who made homemade corn torillas and visited the local school. Arleen made her own tortilla, with help and even ate it. At the school we were taken to their computer room by a little girl named Joana, who made a picture for us. She and her classmates sang a song for us, and we sang You are my sunshine for them. Grand Circle gives money to this school and supplied the computers to them. Then we were treated to a native dance show by the local men, including the deer dance done by a father and his son.

Next morning we left for San Carlos, a beach town near Guaymas, on the Gulf of California. This is a lovely hotel, but not new. There are lots of people here since May1 is labor day and a holiday. So this is a 3 day weekend. There is a wedding here Friday nite and another Sat nite. We leave Sunday morning for Tucson. So we saw a little of the town, ate at a shrimp restaurant and came back to the hotel. Duane fell asleep. He was tired and slept the nite away.

On Sat we walked the beach and picked up shells, sat at the pool and did this blog.

In the morning, early, we leave for the US

4/27 COPPER CANYON

Sorry, but these pictures are not in the right order. We are having some computer problems. So I will try to explain each.

On our trainride out of the canyon we saw a banana palm growing out of this little waterfall. You may not be able to see it, but it is there. This is where our hotel is, right on the canyon wall. This shot is from a lookout point nearby.

Since we are leaving tomorrow, May 3rd, I think it is safe to say that our weather has been wonderful. I am always afraid to say anything like that before we are finished, in case it causes bad luck.

This picture was taken from the train. Look down and you will see the tracks below us. We will make a 180 degree turn inside a tunnel to get to that lower track.

Every day we had vendors outside our hotel. Most of them were local indians, Tarahumara. They are very quiet people and don't bargain. They live in the nearby areas in small houses or in cave areas with houses built in front. They used to only sell wares they made, but they have enlarged their inventories now.

This is the front door to the main lodge area. It is wood, hand carved and painted. Just beautiful.

This is Negrito, or little blackie. He adopted us. Particularly two women in our group who couldn't help but feed him. He would sleep in front of their room at nite, except for when he came to our room at about 4am and scratched on the door and whined to be let in. It took all Arleen could do to control herself and not let him in. Too bad because maybe he would have eaten the scorpion Duane found the next morning.

Us at the canyon, near our hotel.

Now....for the canyon views....

4/26 PAQUAME RUINS

On the way out of Chuhuahua we stopped at Paquame, the ruins of an ancient city. Seems to have been occupied around the same time as Mesa Verde in Colorada, USA. This plaque shows the layout of a building in the shape of a cross, probably depicting the directions. This is the actual structure.

The doorways are similar to those in the southwest US ruins, keyhole shaped. Interesting!

The buildings were constructed of adobe, unlike most US ruins which were constructed of stone. It is amazing that any of the structures survived.

4/26 TO COPPER CANYON

Last nite we were told our bus was broken. That the airconditioning was not working. The driver, Mark, spent until 2am with the repairman that Teresa was able to find, to fix it. This morning all was well. As a matter of fact, the airconditioning works much better now.

On our way to Copper Canyon, we went to a Mennonite colony and visited a couple and their daughter. They showed us their home and answered our questions about their lives and sold us some cheese they bought at the coop, where they have their mild processed into cheese.

Even tho he only had about 4 hours sleep, Mark did a great job driving us up to the mountains at 7,200 feet to Divisidero, at a point on one of the canyons, which in total is called Copper Canyon. It turns out, there are 7 canyons in all.

There were 20 ladies from Monterey Mexico visiting the lodge at the same time. They were either single, divorced or just left their husbands home. Boy, were they having a good time. So, we joined them. When we, Duane and I, entered the bar, the musician recognized us from earlier and dedicated a song to us and we danced to it. So, all the girls wanted to dance with Duane....and they did! All of them....and he loved it. I wish I had video.:) We had a wonderful evening. Too bad they left the next day.

Pictures on the next post.

4/25 Chihuahua City

We took a walking tour of the market area with Teresa, our guide, this morning. Amongst other things like food stands and clothing stores, we saw shops that sold pinatas. We were surprised to see the new style pinatas. See below. There were also spiderman in both black and red suits and every other cartoon character you can think of. They make the pinatas there. This is what a "naked" pinata looks like.

We visited a cathedral. Outside the church was this memorial to the hundreds of women of Juarez, Mexico, who were tortured and killed since around 1992(?). These women were spoken of in the Vagina Monologues. According to our guide, the Mexican government has sent troops to help protect the women. She says things are better now. We have no way to know ourselves.

On our way back to our hotel, we pass a plaza and saw a bike "locked" to a post. This is how the police secure their vehicles when they go on their walk arounds. The crime rate is so low they don't have much other use for their handcuffs:)

We went to lunch on our own. We walked around and spotted a small shop where locals were eating. We were trying to understand the menu when the lady there said she spoke english. So she helped us choose some lunch. As soon as she did, she left us on our own. Duane had a chile-relleno burrito and Arleen had a hamburger on a torilla. Both were different and delicious. We spoke broken spanish to the man behind the counter and he spoke good spanish back to us. We managed to communicate and learned about the other items on the menu. Being with the locals, on our own, was a highlight of our trip.

We went to a home-hosted dinner at Blanca's. She has a very nice, if small, modern home in the city. 3 bedroom 2 bath with a nice backyard. (when she showed us her backyard, her turtle showed up to greet us...which was a surprise to her since he had been missing for some time). Her english was very good, so we were able to talk about lots of stuff. She had recently lost her son and mother, but she did not let any of that dampen her spirits with us. Her husband was out with her grandson at their weekend farm patch, where they have horses and goats and chickens and fruit trees.

Next we visited the home of Pancho Villa (turns out that was not his real name, he started using it after the real Pancho, the leader of his gang, died) Depending on who you talk to, he was either a hero of the revolution of 1910, or/and an outlaw or bandit. He probably was both.

After the revolution he was assissinated because he spoke out against the new president. He was set up by a man impersonating a candy vendor, who went up to his car, see picture below, and when Pancho stopped to buy the candy, the snipers opened fire. Note, the car was a Dodge, which had a star of David on the front, because the company was owned by Jewish brothers at that time.

This is a machine gun that was mounted on a saddle. Duane says this is how they transported it, but Arleen thinks it would be cool to see someone shooting a machine gun from horseback.;)