November 1 Drive to Basaseachic (El Dia de los Muertos)

I woke up with the brazen roosters. Brenda was already out the door. There wasn't much to do before 6:00am, before the generator delivers the needed current for light. I found my way through clothes lines strung across the patio and into the kitchen, where the cooks were peering between the curtains in the front window. I opened the front door to see a mass of green. I rubbed my eyes and cautiously stepped outside. Pinon burning throughout the night cast a haze over the valley. Dark green Federale jeeps had encircled the town square sometime in the night. Brenda was sitting on a bench near the bandstand. I squeezed between the bumpers of jeeps to reach her. "What's going on?" I whispered. She wasn't sure. The jeeps had been arriving during the previous hour, while she was writing in her journal. Young soldiers were carting boxes of ammunition into the municipal building. I went with my post cards clearly in hand toward the center of the activity, the tiny post office. "Esta el Correo?" I asked loudly. "No permite," one soldier responded. I went back to sit with Brenda in the midst of all the commotion. I was surprised that we hadn't been asked to leave. I speculated that something major had happened. With so much fire power all around me, thoughts of being witness to a civil war entered my head. We hadn't heard any news during the week we were away, and we never really heard news from these vague regions anyway. While slumped soldiers manned their jeep-mounted machine guns, it occurred to me that a delicious breakfast was about to land on the table inside Margarita's and the Europeans would be up soon. We went inside to find Michael with this hand in the tortilla basket. I asked a local woman about the sudden military presence. She told me there was ongoing conflict between the Federales and the people in the remote canyons. The people in Batopilas were protected by their small arms and the defiant mountains around them.

By mid morning many of the jeeps had moved out of the town square, making room for us to leave in the Trooper. We hurried to get to La Junta, where it truly was our lucky day -- a big tanker had just left a supply of magna sin. This meant we could take a detour to the falls of Basaseachic, which we heard were among the most impressive in North America, falling about 1,000 feet. Our map indicated a straight line in the direction of Sonora should get us there in quick time. But, the actual road was not straight or level for even a minute, taking us all day, and even requiring more dreaded travel on the narrow highways after dark, to get there. Again, we could only try to imagine the landscape around us in the darkness. A hand-painted sign pointed to the park and a dirt road led us to a campground. We were only the second group to occupy a site for the night. The group we found there was lit by a massive bonfire. The gleam of fire light emendated from glass bottles. The group remained extremely happy despite the rapidly dropping temperature. We enjoyed our hot chocolate and chicken noodle soup, while our neighbors belted out popular tunes and novelty songs in the distance. Their light dimmed and their voices faded late in the night, as I struggled to keep my sleeping bag bundled tightly around me. NEXT PAGE