During the Christmas break of my junior year in high school, it was time to go to Mexico and the beach again. I’d gone to Guaymas the previous year and was eager to do something similar again. Mexico was a big place, as far as I was concerned, and I’d just gone to one little piece of it on that trip. Once again, I was excited by the possibilities and the vast array of destination options.
It was Christmas break of my sophomore year in high school when my friend and classmate Jake and I took off from Denton. We loaded all our gear and then drove his parents’ VW camper/van (with their permission), bound for Mexico with a stop in Douglas, Arizona. The plan was to meet up in Douglas with an older, more mature person named Jim, whom I knew from the summer camp where I’d been a CIT the previous summer. From there, the three of us would travel to Guaymas, Mexico, where we’d camp out, have some quality beach time, and experience a bunch of “neat adventure stuff.” In the van, we had scuba gear packed away under one of the seats in cardboard boxes, places to sleep, and we must have had some food somewhere.
Drums,
Beating slowly,
And filling the air
With distant
Thumps.
A sound that connects
One canyon
To another.
One village to
The next.
Like a heartbeat,
Faintly pounding,
Almost rumbling,
As the people
Move their feet.
Walking
Somewhere, always somewhere.
Down the arroyo,
Across the meadow
To the big rock,
Never talking.
Soft, but hardened,
Mostly happy,
Sometimes sad,
And often burdened.
By others,
Who want something more
Than….
Semana Santa,
Matachines,
Tesguinado,
Raramuri.
Many
Places to go,
People to see,
Things to do,
And a world to ponder.
Audio Version:
Adventure lurks………
It was Christmas break of my sophomore year in high school when my friend and classmate Jake and I took off from Denton. We geared up and drove his parent’s VW camper/van (with their permission), bound for Mexico with a stop in Douglas, Arizona. The plan was to meet up in Douglas with an older, more mature person named Jim, whom I knew from the summer camp where I’d worked the previous summer. From there, the three of us would travel to Guaymas, Mexico, where we’d camp, have some quality beach time, and experience a bunch of “neat adventure stuff.” In the van, we had scuba gear packed away under one of the seats in cardboard boxes, places to sleep, and we must have had some food somewhere.
I was in Mexico’s Copper Canyon leading a group of “Chavochi” adventure travelers. “Chavochi” is basically the Tarahumara word for Gringo, non-indigenous, devil people. Various things happened while we were down there in Batopilas Canyon and the town of Batopilas, which may or may not be related. I think they are.
“You’re not lost, if you don’t care where you are.”
At this point, we were some 20 miles from the last little outpost of a town we’d been through. But theoretically, at least, we were about to come to another. Jerry had the best available maps of the area loaded onto his GPS. But it only told us where we were relative to the data it was loaded with. The adage “garbage in, garbage out” came to mind, and soon after, the vision of a web page that said “no data available.”
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