Batopilas

Batopilas, once we arrived, was a very very small town. The town makes it's money now on eco-tourism, I suppose. The hardy souls who make it down into the canyon (yes, I am now a hardy soul) are hikers and campers and backpackers (no, I'm not one of those)! The streams were crystal clear and you can see in the photo the size of the boulders. They were three or four stories high. Amazing. Batopoilas in the late 1800's was an extremely wealthy town of 10,000 or so, who lived there to mine silver. The man who had the "contract" for the mining of the silver paid $600,000 US dollars for that contract in the 1860's. He was the former mayor of Washington DC!! He lived with his wife and children in a hacienda that he built in Batopilas and the town was the second electrified town in Mexico...........Mexico City being the first. I find that so amazing. The weather was lovely and mild when we were down in the canyon so I can imagine in the summer how hot it must be.

The highlight of the trip for me was when we headed from Batopilas to a village beyond on a goat path in a truck (I must be crazy) to see a church. On the way, we saw this old man in the photo walking. We stopped and picked him up and he rode in the back of the pickup to that village. Here is his story. He thinks he is about 85 years old. He thinks he has about 125 children, grandchildren, great and great-great grandchildren combined. He was walking to the village to see all of the above...........He thought it would take him about 9 hours to get there!!!! We got him there in about 45 minutes. When we finally arrived at his family's house, I asked if I could take his photograph and he said he as very old and very ugly. I said to him no, that he was very handsome and I would be honored. He broke into a smile and I took this photo. I treasure it. We never asked his name, it didn't matter. The experience was a "once in a lifetime".