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Urique Canyon

After four days in Creel we were finally ready to go and look at some canyon. We managed to get out of Creel by about 10:30 (we are notoriously slow at getting going in the mornings). The road was in perfect condition and the weather was gorgeous. We stopped to take pictures anytime we got a glimpse of the canyon.

Divisadero Barranca Hotel

Our first stop was Divisadero where we stopped briefly to ogle the view from the Divisadero Barranca Hotel's balcony. We went so far as to ask the price of a room, but even with breakfast and dinner included we found the $140 price tag a bit beyond our budget. But for the regular vacation tourist we thought it would be a great deal. The view is certainly worth lots and every room sits on the edge of the canyon with a panoramic view. We can't speak to the quality of the food, but the restaurant too has huge picture windows that overlook the canyon.

Divisadero is not a town in any sense of the word, it is only a hotel and a train station separated by a gauntlet of souvenir stalls. For tourists it is but a short walk from the train platform to the hotel and each train brings at least one or two of them. The train travels a couple of times a day from Chihuahua city to the Pacific Coast at Los Mochis and back.

Our Cabin at Cabañas Diaz

We checked out the hotel and asked the price and decided we probably didn’t want to spend $140 a day even with three meals included for each of us. But they did have a fabulous view from the restaurant and bar. From the hotel we walked up the small hill lined with souvenir sellers to the train station and got to see a train arriving from Creel just after we got there. Then it was back to the car and onward to Areponapuchi, the nearby "real" village (as opposed to the one-horse, or rather one-hotel, town of Divisadero). There, after driving around the decidedly unsmooth roads of the village for a while, we decided to go for LP’S recommendation: Cabañas Diaz. The eponymous cabin was a simple room in a row of about six. We got to pick the largest of the three rooms we were shown. Very simple, a bit like the room we had in Cahuisori, near Basaseachi: it had concrete floor, painted and plastered walls, two double beds, a dresser, a fireplace (which must be important in winter) and a bathroom with a tiled floor, but an open shower with no real shower tray.

Diaz family kitchen

Food was our next priority, so we asked Señor Diaz if we could get something to eat and were told yes, we could eat in the main house for 50 pesos each per meal. We unpacked and then walked over to the family house for lunch. The dining room is big enough for about four tables for eight people and the kitchen directly behind it is as big . againThe food was very simple, but at least seconds were offered. We had a chicken stew with the inevitable frijoles and green beans both sprinkled with cheese.

After lunch we went back to the room to read and nap and then went for a walk around 5 p.m. We had seen a sign for the trayl (sic) to the canyon and so followed it and the horse droppings until we were high enough to get a view of the canyon. There we found a comfortable rock and sat down to enjoy the view. Just before we sat down, we met a group of tourists on horseback coming down the hill. We asked them where they had been and they said 20 minutes further on. We walked back down and went to our room and worked on computers for the rest of the evening. We were happy to find that there was plenty of hot water.

Jan at canyon overlook

We were up at first light, around 6 a.m. and listened to the radio a bit before getting up at 7 and packing backpacks for a day’s hike. Walked over to breakfast to be greeted my Mrs Diaz, Armando’s wife. Obviously the younger woman who gave us lunch yesterday was a daughter or daughter-in-law.

Breakfast was very good. We started with a bowl of thin oatmeal and then a plate of two fried eggs, french fries (a bit greasy), and frijoles plus a plate of toast. Jan ate the oatmeal, one fried egg, and a couple of french fries, and a couple of pieces of toast and gave the rest to Gerry. After breakfast Gerry asked Armando about the house and its history and learned that originally there were two rooms and a patio and that they have extended the house at least twice to its present size. They showed us a picture of the original house and of their first guests who came in 1997. He said that the road from Creel had been paved for only three years and that they got electricity in about 1984.

By the time we left the house it was 9:30. We crossed the street and found a narrow path that brought us to the trailhead without having to detour down to the sign and back. We crossed the tracks and in only 20 minutes were at the rock that it took us 40 minutes to reach the previous evening. We stopped for a brief look then walked on up the hill trying to follow the path of the horses. As we got closer to the hill, Gerry decided we didn’t need to follow the horsepath any more and climbed up onto the top of the hill and then walked along by someone’s cornfield until we were as close as we could get to the canyon and sat down on some rocks and enjoyed the view for 15 minutes. We shared a couple of pieces of fruit and read for another 15 minutes and then set off back down the hill.

Hummingbird at Feeder

As we were coming down we missed the path for a while and as we searched for it, Gerry spotted a large dirt road below us and suggested we follow it as it might lead us to the fancy hotel on the hillside across the train tracks from our hotel. It did just that and brought us almost directly to the door of the Tarahumara Mansion. The Mansion is actually a collection of cabins built on terraces up the side of the mountain. Rather than go inside the main building we climbed up the hill past the hotel cabins to a viewpoint and got some more spectacular views of the canyon and sat there just the two of us again drinking in the view.

From our viewpoint we could see just below us the other fancy hotel in town, the Posada Barranca. When we’d looked enough we walked along the rim and eventually came down at the hotel. Here we found a lovely patio overlooking the canyon and Gerry finally agreed to having a shandy while we enjoyed the view. We bought a can of Sprite and a can of Mexican beer for the princely sum of 45 pesos, as much as a meal in our guesthouse, but we got not only to enjoy the fantastic view, but also to admire the humming birds that were coming to the feeders set up on the patio. And so finally our rather long day came to an end and we walked back from the hotel across the tracks to Cabañas Diaz for a welcome shower before dinner.

Tal Baniel

At dinner, we met Anat and Tal Baniel from Ramat Gan at dinner. We told them we had friends and relatives in and near Ramat Gan and quickly found to our surprise that Tal knew Gerry's cousin Smadar Komisar! Small world indeed. They are going to hike down into the canyon tomorrow, camp for one night, and then climb back up the next day. They say it is a descent (and climb) of 1,200 meters or 4,000 feet.

We woke at first light again, listened to shortwave radio a bit and then got up and ready for breakfast at 8. At breakfast there was a distinct chill in the air. Mrs Diaz was unhappy with us for some reason that we didn’t ever figure out. When Tal showed up for breakfast he told us that Anat had diarrhea and so maybe their trip would have to be . postponedLater we learned by email that they did take the trip a day later and thoroughly enjoyed it.