DAY 9 – Urique (11/13/11)
After we woke up and said our goodbyes, we moved to Entre Amigos.
We found Caballo in the main house when we got there. He explained no matter which lodging option we decided on, we would have free-run of the commons area of the property. This included the communal building which housed the kitchen, dining area, game room, and hostel bunk room, as well as the gardens, outhouses, shower house, and patio. LeeWhay and I decided to take the guest house (460MXN). It was pretty large, would sleep four, had a kitchenette with sink but no restroom. Adam took the private room (400MXN) which was pretty much a hotel room with no bathroom. (For completeness, the hostel rate was 180MXN.)
Communal building:
Guest House:
Just as we settled in around 10am, it began to rain on and off for the next day and a half. It was pretty light at first so, we went for a walk along the Urique River on the road and along the riverbank for a couple of hours.
We decided to eat a lunch of canned soup and crackers just as the rain intensified. Due to the dreariness, we sat in the communal building and played ping-pong, Trivial Pursuit (without the board), and read the Overland Journal. We tried to stay warm (a fireplace would have helped) and had to provide our own lighting due to the sporadic electricity outages throughout the day (due to the storm we assumed). The wood fueled shower house had exceptionally hot water which helped fight the cold off.
When the rain let up, we would wander out and talk to Caballo about the region, the tourism drought, the drug issues, the Tarahumara people. He was an interesting person, had an interesting background, and an interesting outlook on life. We also learned about the Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon (link in previous post) and his nonprofit organization whose mission is to “support and reinvigorate an ancient and unique running culture that has endured from long before the arrival of Europeans on their continent.” The website is http://www.norawas.org/.
This was our day. It was a welcome change to our routine since we had basically spent the last eight days driving a large portion of each day.
As night rolled in, we decided we would leave early in the morning and see how far we would get. Time for bed. This is what Adam found:
“There was a dead, squished, shriveled, dried mouse in a pool of its own evaporated blood (and maybe guts) sandwiched in between the ‘clean sheets’. All of that was alongside a half a dozen insect cocoons.”
This, along with the entrapped, dead mouse we found on the oven, gave more support to our theory that no one had stayed here for quite a while. And, we were the only people at Entre Amigos for the 24 hours we were there…