As dawn began to spill over the solid basalt cliff’face towering over my campsite, a dog busied himself at the foot of my sleeping bag by relentssly barking at me. I wasn´t quite sure why I was being subjected to his alarm. ¨Buenos Dias, Tequeso.¨I said softly, hoping he´d remember our shortlived friendship the day before when I fed him some tortilla.

He stretched slowly, arching his back and resting his floppy ears and head on top of his paws that he was extending towards me. His hindquarters remained upright as if he just might pounce on me after he´s done stretching. Tequeso gently growled and tilted his head to the side while he pawed repeatedly at the air, as if to say, ¨Why aren´t you up and enjoying this beautiful place.¨

At the end of Basaseachi, a village that did not even exist on our Northern Mexico Map is a Parque Nacional surrounding a breathtaking 310 meter “cascada,” the tallest in Mexico. Below, a mist of water settled in an immense pool of absinthe tinted water, before trickling through house sized boulders into the Rio Candameña that slides through a colossal box canyon. Immense cliffs that defy perspective of proportion leave you feeling as if you were among a land of giants. “It would be a shame to sleep in,” I thought reassuringly.

Impatiently, Tequeso strengthened his argument by taking off with one of my socks, running through some low brush and behind a mushroom shaped boulder. He liked this game. I was a poor match for him.

I sat in defeat with a cup of Mezclado Coffee I brewed (a sweet coffee roasted with 30% azucar) and felt the warm breeze carry the scent of sunlight grazing the morning dew on pine needles. The day before, we swam in a nearby creek, where we followed the cool water between narrow slots, under arches, and through small underwater tunnels. Little climbing challenges appeared on the rock faces jetting out of the deep pools of water and my failures were rewarded with a refreshing dip. Though, at the moment, my refuge of shade from the warm sun had quickly receded, and I couldn’t wait to explore the waterfall and other swimming holes.  “And maybe,” I thought, “the dog will bring back my sock.”

 A little boy named Alexander, greeted me as I walked below the Area de Acampar through a horseshoe of half a dozen Artesanio Shops and restaurants. He was wearing a faded striped shirt, so thin it was almost transparent and a pair of dusty blue shorts.

“Why aren´t you at school?” I teased.

“No, no attendo la escuela.” He replied.

“¿Porque no?”

“Yo necesito a ayudar (help) mi familia aquí.”

“¿Donde estan tus amigos?”I asked.

“En Basaseachi, aya.” He pointed down the road.

“¿Te quiere?” He asked as he held up a bag of spicy Cheetohs.

“No, no gracias.”

After exhausting my conversational vocabulary I said goodbye and continued down to the trailhead. The four of us bounced down the steps and over a short metal bridge. Traversing the creek, we could see the transparent water trickle behind a 50 yard slab of rock, pouring through narrow passages into a larger pool gradually painting the water into a shifting evanescent green.

A slot canyon cut through the rock forming rounded out spherical swimming holes. Nate leaped into one of the narrow pools and encouraged the idle water to ripple against the contours of the canyon.

I hopped in after Nate and misjudged the drop, landing a bit too far and had to brace my fall somewhat against an underwater rock-face. The moment of fear was quickly supplanted with the exhilaration of frigid water. I retreated to a sunny segment of rock rising out of the water.   As the sun scintillated into the water, a reflection of fluid, electric luminosity shimmered across the stone walls.

After exploring that swimming hole, we continued towards the main attraction. A cliff face appeared in the distance; an illusory view of the horizon precipitously vanished and reappeared on the other side of the vast canyon.  As we edged up to the rim, a gust of mist swept over us. Only a fluttering rainbow separated us from the pool of water 1,000 feet below.

The stream slipped down a narrow rock slide under a substantial stone arch and hesitated as it rested in one final pool before plunging into the canyon depths.  We clambered over the arch and around the pool. I said to Nate, “Hey, I think we could probably swim in there.”

“You think we could get out?” He replied.

We stared down at the pool and the steep slopes on all sides.

“Ehh..I think we´d have no choice.” I replied.

We cautiously maneuvered down to the top of the slide and looked down at the pool framed by the overhead arch. Nate insisted on going first. He straddled the flow of water and sat down, wedging his hands against the rocks before letting go and sliding into the panorama of a swimming hole at edge of the earth. After the splash faded into wrinkles at the surface, Nate emerged with a radiant smile on his face. We were able to easily climb out of the pool and soon all of us were jumping in and lounging on the sunny rocks near the edge, allowing us to see the water cascade all the way to the bottom.

We dried off in the sun and headed towards the trailhead. Steep switchbacks were well defined and at more precarious places, the hiker was protected by barbed wire. Every once in a while, the cover of Pine Trees and Madrones would break and expose a view of the waterfall and surrounding canyon. The trail flattened out at the bottom and wound around gigantic boulders and through wildflowers that looked like Indian Paintbrush, ending at a lagoon of water at the base of “la cascada.”  The cliffs had risen above the sun, and its shadow was gently covering the water.  I took the opportunity to swim out into the cold water before the shimmering pool was completely cloaked. The water falling above faded into the wind, but continued to trickle down the mossy rock surfaces at the bottom. I whirled my head around to take in the complete vista, from the tadpoles nipping at my feet to the expansive cliff face reaching towards the sky.

Hiking up was much slower, but we were in pretty good shape from our daily bike rides and continued even further up the trail to a “Ventana” resting at the edge of an opposing cliff. From there we could see our swimming hole as a mere speck in the magnificent canyon country. Nate summed up our awe, “The Yosemite of the Sierra Madres.”

Back at camp, I saw Tequeso wagging his tail as if he had been waiting for us to come back. He had something in his mouth and I hoped it was my sock. I walked up to him, half expecting him to bolt.  However, when I got closer, he merely flopped to the ground and began aggressively chewing Sean´s bike glove.

I managed to grab the glove from him and asked, “Tequeso.. what´d you do with my sock?”

I tried again in Spanish, “¿Tequeso, donde es mi calcetine?”

No response. He really did like this game.

“A small price to pay to swim in waterfalls,” I thought, conceding his victory.

I could just barely make out the outline of a Ranchero in boots and a sombrero step over me as he made his way to the canal. There was but a dim glow of an infant dawn in the sky so I cowered back into my previous inconsequential realm of dreams. Yet I managed to find no relief from the cacophonic chorus of crowing roosters, bellowing cattle, and screeching buzzards walloping one another with their thick set of wings. I had put down my bed roll on the foot path in order to afford a view of the farm fields lit up by fire flies. There their graceful flight-dance patterns had lulled me to sleep and now the bustle of ranch life compelled me to make an early start on the morning’s chores.

By the time breakfast had been eaten, swarms of red ants of various sizes were scrambling over our cook sight, viciously seizing any crumbs of food matter. As I began packing up my bike, a stream of ants began pouring into my sandals. They set about crawling up my ankles but I was determined to not let them interrupt my daily routine and let them crawl… until they began to bite. One ant must have been pressed against my foot by my sandal strap, for the wound that it inflicted was by far the most painful bug bite I had ever experienced. I thought that I had had it bad the previous day, when an insane bee flew into my nose and stung me on the inside of my nostril. It buzzed around my head as I cursed and yelled in agitation, trying to find the stinger it had left embedded in my flesh. The bee´s persistant harassment forced me to end short my bimonthly phone conversation with my father, who was presently laughing hysterically on the line. After the stinger was removed, the pain in my nose lasted but five minutes. The spot where the hormigas (ants) had nibbled throbbed and burned for a good six or seven hours. As we began riding that day it felt as if some venom were flowing from the bite on my foot up and down the veins in my lower leg.

Directions to nearby Hot Springs appeared on signs along the roads. Though it was still early morning –the mild time of day- I was drenched in sweat, yet I felt maybe the springs would enrage or sooth my ant bite, and either way welcomed a change of state. Everyone else regarded the idea of sitting in hot water under the oppressive Sonoran sun as foolish so we moved on.

In the central town piazza of Arivechi we found a beautiful gazebo stylized in an Andalusia architectural motif. Lying on the shaded floor beneath the gazebo we starred up at the high dome ceiling and observed stained glass portraits of desert ranch life. Across the street small children peered at us through the spaces between the fences that set the boundary for their school yard. ¨Just wait long enough for them to be dismissed from class¨, we thought, and they’ll be out here asking endless questions and demanding rides on the back of our bikes¨.

Jacob insisted that we buy meat for our dinner before leaving town. The carniceria (butchers shop) was but a small room with several sides of cow hanging from a coat rack. A kilo of steak was cut for us in thin slices by the butcher. Goat searched the town for ice to help preserve the meat. In the back yard of small market a woman chipped away at a giant ice brick, we were obliged purchase a sizeable chunk. When we had brought it back to pack with the meat, it was clear that ice would last maybe twenty minutes before dissolving into a puddle. Still, everyone felt invigorated knowing that there was an end in sight to the monotonous meal routine. The huge bag of ice gave me a good moment’s relief from the fire in my foot. We were just on our way out of Arivechi when we heard the voice of a woman, firmly in English; ask how long it had been since we’d seen a good meal. She was in the driver’s seat of a pick’ up truck that had Texas license plates.

¨I’m going to be cooking up quite a meal pretty soon, it’ll take me some time, but if you guys are free to sit back and relax a bit, I’d be happy to feed you. Of course in real life, we are not the touring bicyclists that we proclaim to be, but professionals of revelling in the comforts of local hospitality. We could not refuse.

Our host’s name was Sarah, and she and her husband James were living in Arivechi pursuing missionary work for their Baptist church. Their house was a work-in-progress, most of their material possessions stacked in a hallway leading toward an empty room as well as the master bedroom. We would learn later that James and Sarah enjoyed the company of many guests ‘mainly members of their church on retreat’ and as a consequence of so little home room enjoyed little privacy since their bedroom held access to both kitchen and bathroom. As we settled into chairs at the dinning table I instantly was overcome with an intolerable nervous energy. It might have been the burning sensation of venom pulsing through my veins, or the realization that we may never make it out of this small town, or just wretched nostalgia at having been subjected to bible study and religious creed lectures at my Catholic High school I felt ill at ease. I tried calming myself, spoke a few words to James, and instantly became appalled at how forced and awkward the tone of my voice had sounded.

Eventually I excused myself to take advantage of the shower. Both Nate and Jacob expressed mild frustration with the shower. It had a small tube channelling the tape into the shower head that would periodically blow off when the pressure ran too high. While trying to reattach the tube, Nate had been shocked from the wires running out of the electric water heater. I just switched the heater off, and let the cool water wash away a weeks worth of dust and grime baked into a crisp crust by the Sonoran sun.

I sat back down at the dinning room table just in time to hear James account of how he and Sarah met. James had been involved in ministry service for many years, working mostly in small towns throughout Chihuahua. It had been his calling, and it provided him contentment, though through the years he hade devoted part of his prayers to his hearts desire for a partner.

¨Well, one day a youth group came on retreat through the town I was stationed in, and when I beheld Sarah, why… I knew within my heart that I wanted her to be my wife.¨ James appeared to be trembling slightly with emotion. He took a slight pause while Sarah took a break from the stove to provide an affectionate caress through James hair, allowing him the strength to continue.

As it turned out, the minister leading the youth group talked to me about his hopes that his own son would enjoy union with Sarah. When he told me this I just about lost any hope that I would find a wife. But some time passed, and things weren’t working out between Sarah and the minister’s son. The minister spoke to me about how he didn’t feel his son would find union with Sarah, and so I swallowed hard, and expressed my interest in Sarah… and then by golly if the minister didn’t turn red as a tomato and look ready to fall over backwards. But he took a deep breath and said, if my son isn’t meant to marry Sarah, then I can think of no better person to ask for her hand¨.

¨So the minister ended up putting a good word in for me with Sarah’s parents, though I was significantly terrified at engaging them directly. What if they didn’t like me? What if they felt I was too old for Sarah? (There was a considerable age difference between the two). Well, none of these fears turned out being valid. Sarah’s parents took an instant likening to me, and as I found out later, Sarah herself passionately believed that her path in life was in ministry work.¨

It’s like your arrival in this town¨, began James. ¨We hade seen you guys before, outside of the town of Moctezuma, and we actually prayed to God ´Lord, if it is your will, please send these young bicyclists our way´. And here you are an answer to our prayers! ¨.

The entire time James was telling his story, my eyes roamed the small kitchen area. Inevitably they would rest briefly on a small girl of maybe ten years old, with huge dark eyes, hands folded in lap, wearing a tee-shirt that had a glittery English inscription, ´Girl´. She must have come into the house when I was showering. I had little idea of who she might be, other than a member of a family that accepted James church. When the food was ready Sarah asked her if she wanted to eat anything she quietly nodded her head in the negative.

The meal Sarah prepared was delicious. All of us ate with ravenous appetites, even though we had already had a big breakfast. Smoothies were prepared for an after lunch dessert, and we soon found ourselves refreshed and lazy, happy to have a siesta during the hottest part of the day. As we were preparing to leave one of the neighbours came by claiming that he had prepared pizzas for each of us. Naturally we had to stay a bit longer to finish these off. James offered to drive me by the town clinic to pick up some packets of ´Suero´ an electrolyte formula. On the way he pointed out a piece of land that he had recently purchased.

¨A nice spot for a church¨ He exclaimed. ¨Yet it will be awhile before construction starts, since there are few converts in the town.¨

The clinic was closed, but James and Sarah lavished our food bags with all kinds of good snack foods. We bid our benevolent hosts farewell and took leave of Arivechi.

That night we found a beautiful camp spot by a narrow stream situated between two grazing fields. As we were settling in, a Ranchero trotted up to us on his horse and asked us what we were doing and where we were from.
Goat conversed with the man for awhile. ¨We´d like to sleep on your land.¨

¨Yeah, it is a great place to camp, isn’t it.¨
¨We’ve been biking from Alaska, and we’re going to Chile¨. To which the man responded with some euphemism unique to Spanish that incited Goat to both laugh hysterically and immediately forget the phrasing and meaning. That night Goat woke with the strange sensation of something furry crawling upon his skin. A large spider was perched upon his face. It scurried away without incident.

The next day of biking was hectic. Like a rollercoaster ride, the road snaked and weaved around and over long hills. A pack of horses were in a racing spirit that day and made sure that I remained in their wake for a few kilometres. On a long downhill I had the chance to pass them, but they kept to their road-hogging formation and I could not find a way around them.
It was incredibly hot. I could make out a small lake in the distance, and believed the road would eventually connect to the shore, but it never did. With the intensity of the heat, the reasonable thing would have been to pull over and rest under the shade of a tree. Not having seen my friends for a good hour I suspected they already made this decision. I pressed on, hoping to get to the town of San Nicholas before I ran out of water.

The hills persisted and I was dangerously low on water. I attempted to pump water from a small mud hole near some grazing cows, but the filter clogged after only a minute of pumping. Not knowing how far the next town, I figured the best move would be to wait for my friends, but momentarily a man on a mule approached. He told me San Nicholas was less than ten kilometres away.

Six kilometres later I came to Puente San Nicholas or ´The San Nicholas Bridge´. In Sonora they name the bridge, not the creek flowing beneath. Sounds of human activity mixed with the gurgle of running water. I descended a steep hill on foot; saw the forms of three men ‘early twenties’ bathing in their shorts. Then I saw their weapons military issue automatic rifles, at the sight of which I began to shy from progressing further. Then they made sort of a celebration of my arrival, encouraging me to drink and cool off in the water. My attempts to explain my bike trip were met with expressions of mild amusement but neither conviction nor intrigue. One of the guys directed me to a small hole dug out of the river stones, and told me the water was safe to drink there. His advice appeared questionable the water did feel to be at different temperature than the rest of the stream, yet, even if it was a spring, there was nothing preventing the rest of the stream from mixing in with its water. I brought out my water filter, but it was clogged and had to clean it. As I began scrubbing away at the filter, the man stood above me and with a gesture of impatience motioned for me to dip my water holder into the spring. Ignoring him didn’t help the situation he grabbed a plastic bottle of the ground, filled it with water, and then emptied it into my camel back water bag.

¨Thanks, ¨ I said, ¨that sure saves me a lot of time¨. He smiled, pleased at having saved the gringo from dehydration. Drinking heavily from the water, I forced a smile thinking to myself ¨just this little sip will leave me vomiting for days.¨

My new friends continued washing themselves, shaving, washing their fatigues, or smoking Marlboroughs. They offered me a Tecate from their beer stash chilling in the stream. I politely denied the offer, thinking that under the circumstances I’d better have my wits about me. All at once they started asking demeaning questions like ¨where my boyfriends were at¨, and grinned mischievously when my responses weren’t satisfactory. I had to remind myself that I was a weirdo gringo, and that these men ‘Who had been stationed at this particular creek for two months’ were incredibly bored. Making the excuse that I was hungry, I scampered off toward my bike the guy who poured the ´spring water into my bag called out after me, ¨goodbye honey¨. After making sure I was out of sight from the military convoy, I sat down to read. It wasn’t long before an entire troop ‘maybe thirty men’ came marching down the ranch road on which I was staked out. The first few men stopped in their tracks before me, picked up a small sheet of aluminium and showed it to me.

¨Is this yours? ¨ He was holding up part of a Tecate can, which on further inspection had a small mound of resign of something someone was trying to free-base.

¨No, I don’t drink, ¨ I tried pleading ignorance, it’s very bad for my legs.¨

No one seemed very amused, and more of the troops gathered around my scene, all looking at me suspiciously, their rifles dangling close enough to poke my eyes out. They continued inferring that I was a drug user and I kept saying that the Tecate can wasn’t mine. Finally one of the troop poked at my rifle case, formed a very serious, very concerned expression ¨What is this.¨

¨That, ¨ I began, grateful that the subject had been changed, is my little guitar¨.

Half of the men chimed in at once ¨What! You Play_ You must show it to us.¨

So I took the guitar out of the gun case and played a few measures of a blues song. Someone shouted at me, ¨You must play ´Hotel California´.¨ Someone else chimed in, and sing too. ¨ Oddly I had received this request before, maybe four villages back. Perhaps it was more important that I learn the changes to this Eagles hit than to better my comprehension of this foreign language. To avoid the embarrassment of having to sing before thirty armed brutes, I pointed to the least talkative of the bunch and shouted; ¨you know the words to the song, Right? I’ll play and you sing.¨ Then I started strumming some chords, and the man I pointed to got lost, and everyone laughed in good humour. The guy who looked to be in charge shouted at three stragglers still by the stream -the three that I had first encountered. I imagined that they were either chugging down the last of their beer, or stashing it away for when they returned. One of the troopers pulled me aside, pointed to a straggler running frantically without a shirt on, and said to me, ¨Do you know who this man is? This man is ´Rambo´ ¨Everyone had a good chuckle over his remark.

The troop, having collected itself, took off down the road, presumably to engage in gun battles with narco-traffickers. I had a good hour of creek side tranquillity before the rest of my crew showed up. They had taken an early siesta when the heat of the day felt like an extra layer of fat weighing upon and hampering the muscles.

¨This is Rambo country¨ I greeted them. ¨We might want to get out of here before guys with the big guns return.¨
The crew did not seem eager to take my advice. They found the creek to be an ideal camp spot. Naturally I gave in and set about preparing dinner. That night I felt something crawling rapidly over the top of my sleeping bag. Whatever it was I kicked it off and it didn’t come back. Jacob awoke to find a large hairy spider covering a good portion of his face. He said it freaked him out a bit.

In the morning we passed through the military checkpoint two Kilometres up the road from where we slept. Superficially the checkpoint seemed as impervious as Guantanamo Bay; lots of military personal holding big guns. A small encampment off to the side provided a rest area for the men on duty. The checkpoint people briefly looked over our passports, asked each of us to open up one of our bags ‘left up to our choice’, and haphazardly browsed through the top layer. They didn’t bother checking any of Nate´s bags. They didn’t seem interested in my gun case ‘although the story about my short musical performance the day before had probably made the rounds. We watched as they asked the passengers of a bus to disembark and present identification. Not everyone got off the bus; none of the military personal boarded the bus to conduct searches. In short, I’m afraid to say that the San Nicholas unit might not be the most effective in combating drug smuggling.

“Just follow that road and in about two blocks you will be in Mexico.” Said the man carrying a plastic sack filled with clothes and shoes.

We slowly meandered our way through the empty lanes. I looked over at a white van being dissassembled at the border agents´ leisure. They stood around joking and patting each other on the back. No response to the four long bikes rolling past them, with all their earthly possessions precisely positioned on the vehicles. Slowly rolled over the formidable speed bumps and into a new country. Nervous anticipation caught up with me for a moment as I got a glimpse of the choas that was ahead. Huge smiles beamed across our faces and were shared briefly before returning our attention to the bustling city of Nogales de Mexico. Without proper diligence, a cyclist trying to navigate through the orgy of cars and chaos would likely become a charming ornament for the hood of a fast moving vehicle. I took a moment to imagine the pose I would assume were that to be my fate and hoped that my grungy self would at least tarnish the pristine image of a fancy new automobile.Instinctively, as if infected by the madness, we pedaled and weaved in and around the cars, desparately trying to stay with the flow of traffic. The city swooshed by us as we masqueraded through as bicycle messengers carrying an imporant and ridiculously heavy load. A brief pause a mile into town at a city park left us astonished and staring at the constant motion of this strange new world.

“Ehh.. Any thoughts?” I asked hopefully, eyes fixed on the 3 lanes of heavy traffic.

Following a long pause, Goat offered, “Let´s just get as far from here as possible.”

His comment was greeted with unanimous nods of support.

And we plunged once again into the waves of cars, constantly splashed by honks and unintelligible comments from the pedestrians. Just before we drowned in the sea of metal and motion, it let up and offered a little 18″ bike lane of our own. One beater old Mustang got a little jealous of our space and sped past us, leaving mere inches between life and deat

I had always assumed that the signs with a bicycle that say “Share the Road,” were meant for the cars, but in my travels have come to understand that they must actually be directed at cyclists. After all, they don´t need as much room as a car, and should probably balance on the precarious edge of the pavement and dirt so that cars can blast by them as fast as possible. A minor communication error.

Aside from the jealous Mustang, we were treated well on the roads of Mexico, given ample space and friendly smiles-gestures. We were even handed agua fria out the window of a pacing vehicle that wished us “buen suerte” before disappearing.

We began to wonder where the checkpoint was at, to get our Visas cleared. Stopped at an airport to ask a few guards standing around the entrance about the KM 21 checkpoint.

Sean approached them first while I pulled back to watch his linguistic expertise.

The guards sat there quiet for a long pause, anticpating Sean to say something. You could see Sean searching for words to communicate, and came up with, “You guys speak English?”

“No,” They responded simply.

“Ehh..” Sean responded and settled into a long awkward pause.

Goat pedaled up and managed to achieve some semblence of communication. The response was spoken quickly, and we managed to pull out a few words and understand that it was further down the road. “A new era in our travels,” I thought. And reflected on how crucial it was for us to learn Spanish as quickly as possible.

We pedaled down to KM 21 to get our Visas, at an established roadside checkpoint. American dollars were converted to pesos and the immigration officer tried to give Goat a 30 day travelling visa because we told him we were heading through to Guatemala. We had to get him to change it to a 180 day tourist Visa. A simple enough task, that was made extraordinarily difficult by beauocracy and a bit of long hair prejudice.

Nate had recently shaved his hair to donate to “Locks of Love,” but his passport photo still offered a reflection of it at its length. It seemed that the officer couldn´t understand why any “macho” male would have long hair and relished the opportunity to make crude comments about Goat (who hasn´t cut his hair since 3rd grade) and Nate. I´ll spare the details.

Towards the end of the day we were enticed by a roadside taco stand blaring loud Spanish music. A simple handpainted sign on the paint chipped cement wall read:

“MENU = Carne Asada, Tripitas, Quesadillas, Caramelos.”

We were brought out a large platter with a dozen small bowls filled with different types of salsa, guacamole, and peppers. We reveled in the excitement of entering Mexico, and sat there with dumb smiles on our face as we drank our Jumex mango juice, waiting for the food to come and the sun to set.

Day 2

In Magdalena de Kino we planned to resupply and shoot off the main highway along rural roads and trails. Heading into the town, I was a good 100 yards behind Sean and saw another bicyclist riding on the left side of the freeway who would sporadically dart from one side of the road to the other. As I approached closer, the erradic cyclist slammed into a pole and fell off his bike. Sean swerved across the highway to help him.

Sean looked up at me approaching and said, “Man, I feel bad. He was trying to talk to me and just slammed into that pole.”

The guy got up and picked up his bike, erased his embarassment with a friendly smile. Grabbed a huge spool of wire that he was trying to pedal with and attempted to arrange it on his bike.

Sean continued, “I think he was saying that we should get off the road here so we don´t have to pay the toll.”

I look further down the road and see a series of toll booths positioned across the road. My glance wandered back to see the man swerving around on his bike, cutting quickly in front of cars towards the side of the road and walk his bike down a steep cement embankment used to channel water. He motioned for us to follow. Down at the bottom he tossed the metal wire to the ground among a bunch of other random junk and turned back, and asked , “¿Donde vas?”

“Magdalena de Kino,” I replied.

He pointed up past a field towards a road, and said, “Ese as la ciudad de Magdalena de Kino.”

 ”Gracias.” We said and eased down the cement channel. And then pedaled across the vacant dirt lot towards a couple brightly colored houses sitting incongrously between two abandoned houses, with their roofs caved in next to a yard of cemented dirt. I rolled slowly into the neighborhood, my eyes feasting on the new surroundings.

 Getting through a few blocks of the citie presented its own challenges. Steep rolling hills towered over us as we pushed through a neighborhood. Each house separated by wooden fencesñ on some, the paint cracked off, exposing the naked adobe bricks. Little brown dogs appeared at each crack in the fence, warning of us of how dangerous all ten pounds of them could be. A lady wearing a long eggshell colored cotton dress that hung softly underneath her dark hair, stood calmly in her yard, watering the grass. Her children sat in the doorway and stood up to energetically waved to us as we passed. She looked up lazily and waved at us with a welcoming smile. We returned our attention to another steep hill.

“I imagine we´ll be aeeing a lot of this,” Nate said to me as he shifted down into an easier gear and grundled his way up the hill.

 When it appeared as if we were drifting further into the depths of the neighborhood and away from the city I stopped to ask a kid walking by, “¿Donde es el centro de la ciudad?” He paused and looked at me quizzically, for a moment, as he processed my crude basic Spanish. I imagined that he sensed imminent confusion and misunderstanding if he had to verbally explain his directions. He simply pointed to the right at the corner of an intersection.

We found a grocery store and parked our bikes out front. Instantly, we were beseeched with curious locals. One individual, more dedicated to his curiosity than the others, managed to eventually extract our story in some form or another and was able to spare the other townsfolk the painful process of communicating with us by explaining our trip for us. Many lingered around to watch us pack our food and water.

We asked about a small road to Cucurpe, and brought out the map. A man named, Gustavo, offered to help us out, an athletic looking guy wearing a sporty wick’away synthetic shirt and runing shorts. He told us we´d have to go up four blocks and turn left on “Padrigo” and take that out of town. He then talked about mountains and made exaggerated up-down sweeping gestures with his hands while shaking his head back and forth. Seems like we hadn´t chosen the easiest route.

A cop on an ATV had pulled up and watched the crowd watching us. Seems he got the scoop from somebody about our trip and volunteered to show us the way to the road. And with our bikes ready, we asked la policia, “¿Listos?”

He smiled and nodded his head. Turned on his flashing lights and took us down the road. All the cars pulled over and the entire town seemed to be out watching the gringo bike parade. He patiently waited for us to climb to the top of each neighborhood street and blocked off each intersection so that we could maintain our momentum through the next hill. At the edge of town he pulled off the road and waved at us.

Within ten minutes the only thing around was the scorching sun and endless desert mountains. Shadows of vultures brushed the sun baked earth below and the horizon evaporatd into a cloudless saphire sky. Every once in a while a rancher´s truck would pass, its contents squished with passengers in the front and cattle in the back. In the shade of a dirty old cowboy hat, a solemn face would appear briefly, and often a smile would crack the weathered face. They would gently wave out the window, their arm covered by a thin and dusty flannel shirt rolled up past their elbow. Their arm would linger in the wind, flowing up and down as they tilted their hand. There was no rush to get where they were going.

Midday, we laid back under the shade of a tree at the bottom of a dry sandy wash. A gust of warm wind rustled through the remaining foliage making a cracking sound as it passed, bringing the dank pungent stench of rotting cows in from the distance. My eyes followed the path of the tangible breeze and rested on the remains of a few cows laying on their sides. Their skin melted over their bone structure, dripping and shriveling and contorting the creature as if it were a melting clock painted by Salvador Dali. Its eyes, mere shadows, sitting vacant under the tormenting sun. I checked my water supply and hoped for a town to come soon.

In the distance, the sound of a drum carried across the dry air, followed by a vaquero. His horse walked slowly, with its head down to conserve energy, each languid step moving the rider as if he was a lifeless package, fluidly resting on the horse. In one hand he carried a spool of barb wire, and the other he settled on the reigns. He approached us with his head tilted forward and low to mask his face from the sun.

“¿Are you okay?” He asked in a heavily accented Spanish that took a moment for us to register. “Hot day, a man could die in this heat.” He added.

“We´re fine, just taking a siesta,”Goat responded.

 He nodded his head and tugged slightly on the reigns, the horse wound around and continued down the wash in motion slowed by the heat, past the decaying cattle.

 After visiting the small pueblo of Cucuerpe, we set out looking for a place to camp. At the edge of town we saw two locals leaning against a soot coated white pickup watching the sun set over the distant mountains, shaded blue by the contrast of light. Cattle mooed in the distance and the faint sound of lively Mexican music could still be heard coming from the town. Behind the men was a small adobe house with crumbling walls, and a few plastic chairs sitting among piles of empty soda bottles and beer cans.

“Hello,”one of the men said in English.

 ”Hola,” we replied.

 ”Where you going?”

 ”Vamos a Creel y la Barranca Del Cobre.”

 ”Be careful. There´s a crazy guy up their in the hills right now.” He points up the road we´re on and continued with his accented English. “He has a gun, the police are looking for him.”

 Our shadows extend across the earth, reaching over them as we continue up the road. A chilling breeze cut through the heat for the first time that day and carried a haunting laugh through the cactus and tall grass.

What an exciting two weeks we´ve encountered.   Will offer a more thorough update when we get to Creel in the Baranca del Cobre,  internet access has proved less than ideal south of the border.  Be patient.

       We are all happy and in good health climbing up into the Sierra Madres.  We have not seen mountains like this on our entire trip and they are daunting at times.  Yesterday we climbed about 5-6000 feet in elevation and made a grand total of 40 kilometers in a single day.  Up, up, up… one brief mile downhill, and then continue back up, up, up.   Fortunately, we´ve reached the Pine Trees and cooler nights, but that is not to stop us from our easily enjoyed daily siesta.  We will continue to climb for the next couple days.

          Our maps are unbelievably unreliable and deceptive.  We are never quite sure where we are going and what resources we can rely on when we get to the next…is that a puebla..or a city?  Is that on the road, or is it going to be 10 kilometers to the side?  Main roads become dirt roads and dirt roads appear to be main roads.  Our map is like a bad friend, better than nothing, but it sure can be lame.

     Here is a brief view of what we´ve been up to.              

Sean giving the locals a ride.

Constantly attacked by ¨los ninos/as” de las ciudades.

This is supposed to be a main highway according to our map.  

Goat swimming with his bike.

A little relaxtion in the parque del ciudad.