Copper Canyon – Day 7 (Batopilas)

DAY 7 – Batopilas (11/11/11)

We decided to spend the day in and around Batopilas. We would check out the sights and try to find a guide for the next day’s trip to Urique.

The Lost Mission or Mission Satevo was worth the 45 min drive down the Batopilas River’s right bank.* The mission has been substantially restored in the last several years. It now looks like a Southern California stuccoed structure on the outside (pretty bright orange as you can see from the below picture).* The restorers did leave a portion of an old wall in the ruined state; the original bricks were left exposed and un-stuccoed.

Mission Satevo - wall

Mission Satevo - Overview

A local girl/young woman asked if we wanted her to unlock the mission.* We took her up on the offer. The inside looked more like a typical church mission that we have seen in other parts of Mexico. It was not restored as nicely as the outside (a positive to us).

The town of Satevo seemed like a really poor town.* The people were really friendly, helpful, and courteous.* There were a*bunch of kids around attending school but on recess. We decided to give them one of the soccer balls we brought with us to use as gifts.

We decided to go back to Batopilas to see if we could find the only guy in town who could speak English, Rafael, who ran the museum. We wanted to see if he could recommend a guide to show us the way to Urique. It was not until late afternoon that the museum finally opened. Rafael was a big help. He gave us a guided tour of the museum and help broker a deal with Lino, the guide we met the previous day!

We were all set. Lino would meet us the next morning at our hotel after breakfast. He would guide us the 46 miles to Urique via the “new road” which would take us about 3 hours he thought. After we got to Urique, he would get a hotel and begin walking back to Batopilas over the next two days. When we heard this, we were immediately concerned about his safety being in the wilderness for a night. Rafael and Lino both told us this was no big deal and people do it all the time. We hoped this was true and that the $200 we agreed to pay him was not influencing him to take too big of risks. As it turned out, Lino knew many of the ranchers along the route and had some friends in Urique…

We spent the rest of the day hanging out in the town and getting the our gear and the trucks ready for the trip the next day.

P.S. Here are a few more pictures of Batopilas that we took while walking around…

Batopilas - Street Batopilas - narrow street copy

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