Train ride day! We brought our stay in Divisadero Barrancas to an end, with just enough time in between for Raúl to buy a watermelon-sized wood statue of a mother bear and her cubs. As if he wasn’t already carrying 30 or 40 kg of mineral specimens! Fortunately we had a friendly hotel helper with a hand cart, who even carried the super heavy bag up into the train.
The train ride was only an hour and a half long and really pleasant. We went over some of the legendary long bridges of the Chepe, although we didn’t have many spectacular views of the barranca.
Once we got to Bahuichivo we found Hugo, from El Paraíso del Oso Hotel, already waiting for us and the other five guests. Later we found that Hugo is the son of the owner, but for now he was just a strong young man who got the task of carrying the heavy bundle down to the van.
15 km later we entered the region of Cerocahui, which in geologic terms is dominated by an enormous rock-avalanche deposit, which forms a fairly impermeable substrate and thus favors the formation of small creeks. It also gives rise to cliffs, caves, and stone pillars (one of which resembles the profile of Yogi Bear and gives its name to the lodge).
El Paraíso del Oso is an old fashioned lodge, where you are surrounded by beautiful nature and reasonably isolated from television and modern life (but they have satellite internet 😊). Right away after being assigned to our rooms the gardener offered to guide a walk to the Cueva de las Cruces, which also happened to go by the dam. Here was my opportunity to practice my newly-found interest in fishing! I pulled out my spool of fishing line, and the first of my valuable hooks, and with the help of the gardener dug for four scrawny earthworms. I was ready!
We got to the small dam, and Raúl sat in the shade, curious to see my technique. I grabbed a small stick and tied it to the line to work as float, hooked the worm that looked the tastiest, and taking a good swing cast my line into the water. The float worked just fine, and I could well imagine the worm hanging down mid water, an enticing tasty morsel for any self-respecting fish … but nothing happened. I must have slowly retrieved and cast my line a dozen times or more, always with perfect form, but it was all to no avail. I had promised to bring dinner at the end of my line and it was fortunate that the cook had a reserve of smoked pork chops to appease our hunger.
Our fellow lodgers are a fun bunch: A Montessori school owner and her teenage son, and a couple of sugar cane farmers from Tamaulipas and their Biologist son. Add to the mix a talkative staff consisting of the owner Diego (a 78-year old gringo who came to the Sierra 35 years ago and stayed), his son Hugo and adoptive daughter Lupita, the hotel manager Raúl (who I believe is a nephew), and a wonderful cook and her young daughters as waitresses. All in all a well-mixed group amongst which the conversation never flagged. We stayed chatting well into the night, illuminated with kerosene lamps and feeling that we were in the farthest corner of Earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment