We got up around 7 am, had breakfast (with a very good view), then out to our tour. The driver had met us at the bus, given us his card and described his tour. What I liked about him was his command of the English language. Yes, we are in their country and I am the one “at fault” here for traveling in their country without learning the language, but I still appreciate the effort to cater to all languages. In any case, he was on time and had a GMC Tahoe to drive us around. He said we needed something like this for our planned trip. 4 wheel drive and a comfortable seat.
Our first stop out on the tour was a small grocery store for him (Roy) to get a drink, and the second was another small store to get gas. Roy said there was a small town on our route that had gas with regular pumps, and was a little cheaper, but the last time he used them he got water in the gas and spent a bunch of money getting the truck fixed. This “gas station” delivered the fuel from the tank in the back yard of the store to the truck with empty water bottles about 5 liters at a time. Biggest advantage I saw with this is the ability to see if there is water in the fuel.
After this we drove for a while, and stopped at a little restaurant/store and used the bathroom. We saw a few armored cars going the opposite direction from us, Roy said that they were from the gold mine on this road, the mine is owned by a Canadian, they used to use helicopters and planes to move the gold, but after an accident where they lost the plane they switched to armored cars. Then back on the road (we will get back to this restaurant later). We saw a man on the side of the road in one of the towns we drove through selling bags of grapefruit. Three to a bag for 20 pesos (about $1) we got a bag, but did not eat any on this day. The grapefruit are grown at the bottom of the canyon where the climate is “tropical”, and if you have ever grown citrus you are aware that it has to be hot for oranges and lemons to grow and hotter for limes and grapefruit. Roy said that the temperatures in the canyon in the summer time reach 50 degrees Celsius (about 122 degrees Fahrenheit) so the locals typically have two homes one on the bottom of the canyon and one up on the rim. They have goats, it is too hot for them on the canyon floor.
We drove and saw great views and then we turned off the main road and went into a small town, then out the back of the town and up a mountain. VERY steep, about a half mile out of town the pavement ended. We drove about 20 miles further on the dirt road, details below. Roy said that this road went all the way to Los Mochis on the coast.
We drove further out on the road and then off the “main” dirt road onto a side street of it. From this point it was about another 20 miles or so to get to the lookout point. We stopped at a small shop along the way, and while we were stopped Renee’ went in to look at what was being sold, and I talked to Roy about where we were going. He described the point and I used an app called MAPS.ME that works offline (we had very intermittent cell service all day. The app said that we had 8.4 miles to go to the lookout point, and that it was a 4 hour walk or a 2 hour drive. I should point out that Roy said, no it should only be 40 minutes or so, or about 12 mph! He was pretty accurate. This road was not something to be taken lightly. That it was a “maintained” road would not be completely inaccurate, but it had no gravel, a couple of signs along the way, and not much else. On occasion there were cliffs on one side or the other of the road with no barrier. Because of this, we really did not want to talk to Roy as he was driving.
This lookout point was the highest point overlooking the canyon. The city below us was Urique which was on the floor of the canyon. Roy told us that he does a tour to this town, but that it requires an overnight stay in town.
He told us some of the history of the area, showed us a hotel or two that were really nice, one that has a winery (Renee’ got coffee in the bar), and a mission. We saw sights and views that were breathtaking, and finally it was lunch time.
We stopped at the restaurant where we had used the bathroom on the way out, and Roy suggested the “Aqua-Chile” we thought what the heck lets go with that. It was served in a large stone dish with three legs. Pretty spicy, and was a cold dish of shrimp (about 20 or so) cilantro, cucumber and fresh red onions. This was an excellent lunch. As Renee’ has pointed out several times, the food is more than half the reason to travel!
After lunch, it was about an hour or so more to drive back to our hotel, and we said goodbye to Roy and went to our room and relaxed for awhile before dinner. This tour was supposed to take about 5 hours, Roy picked us up at 9 am and dropped us off at almost 3 in the afternoon, we were satisfied with our tour!
Dinner was at the hotel and was pretty good, not as good as lunch but still worth the price. Then off to our room and bed. This is our last night away from the boat. Tomorrow is the Chepe train back to Los Mochis.
