The road to Durango

Travelling south down the Sierras takes us away from the small dusty towns to some of Mexico´s colonel gems. More often than not we are the only guests in quite large hotels and the only customers the bars and restuarants. Its difficult to see how these places make money outside of fiesta times.

There was a tremendous lightning storm as we passed over the Sierra on the way to Durango. Suddenly we stopped with lots of flashing lights ahead. A lorry had lost it on a corner and shed its massive load of apples. He was blocking the road and it looked as if we were there for the night because even some small trucks couldn´t get through and the traffic was rapidly building up. However, our heroic bus driver sent the conductor out onto the rain and inched his way past the wreck, graunching his coach in the process. We had to go off the road and right next to what might have been a sheer drop but all we could see in the dark the lights of cars way below. It was very strange watching this drama while the Transformers film played in the bus

Everyone is very friendly. In South America when someone speaks to you they have a scam, want to sell you something or rob you. In Mexico they are genuinely happy that you are visiting their country. Typical encounters involve people buying us drinks and the sober guy we bumbed into at 11pm who, having found out we were English, insisted we sang Beatles songs with him.

The food is great, although its all on a similar theme, every place serves up different salsas and the food tastes fresh and wholesome, so very different from the Texmex stuff we get at home.

This house belonged to the silver mine owner. He was well liked by his workers but like his contemporaries used indigenous people as slaves to support his very lavish lifestyle. Legend has it that one of the churches in Durango was built by an indigenous person who got rich by finding a gold mine. When the authorities heard this they tortured him to death but he never revealed his secret and the mine has never been found

When we were in Creel our bar friend, Ramone, found us the next day full of apologies. Apparently he got so pissed that after driving home (!) it took him most if the next day to recover and remember his promise. He took us to the hot springs and to the site of the new international airport where his job is to spend a year taking weather readings.