The plan, inspired by an article in BackPacker magazine and developed while poring over 1:250,000 kilometre topographic maps, had us heading east from San Diego, California to Arizona then south to cross the border at Agua Prieta. Us was my brother Tim, his girlfriend and I travelling in a Land Rover Discovery 1, we’d borrowed from my sister, and my NAS Defender 90.
We spent the first night in an Arizona blizzard on highway 8 east surrounded by idling diesel trucks and waiting for the highway to reopen. Bored border officials with a surprising interest in camping gear disproved my theory that a small town Mexico border crossing would be faster. Chihuahua city traffic after midnight was a jarring chaos of flashing lights, wandering pedestrians, charging scooters and blaring horns. Jarring after struggling to stay awake on a dark, two-lane Sonoran road dodging wandering livestock while answering my brother’s CB calls of “flash your lights if you’re asleep.” This was our first trip to mainland Mexico and already we were steeped in the unpredictability I love about overland travel.
Standing on the rim, the canyons of the Barrancas Del Cobre are crisscrossed by dirt roads and footpaths to azure blue rivers running through patches of green up to 6,200 feet below - one hundred feet deeper than Arizona’s Grand Canyon at their deepest. In places, wind, water and time have been lazy carving the canyon walls to leave gradual drops, rounded peaks and plateaus where hearty vegetation grows. In others, the depth was reached by a violent hacking leaving deep vertical drops and sharp canyon edges. The rim is lined with pine and oak forest while at the canyon’s depth palm and fig trees surround cool swimming holes in the rivers flow. The dirt roads that switchback around the canyon walls are punctuated by small farms, logging trucks, Narco spotters with AR’s and radios, and native Tarahumara homes.
The driver of a Pepsi company’s glass-bottle laden Dodge rattling out of the town of Urique described a place to camp on the river near his family home. Deep in the canyon the river sand was soft under our dome tent, the days were cool for hiking and we had 3 young shadows sharing Spanish language and snacks. In the evenings, the town square was full of families and music with a small restaurant a short walk down a dirt street serving Chile Relleno and chicken tacos.
Batopilas was a larger town deep in a neighbouring canyon. The town square was deserted despite the lunch hour. It was ringed by 6 bent metal benches on stark concrete in the shadow of an ornate government building. We ate in the cool interior of a bright green, cinderblock restaurant at the edge of the square. The few customers that strolled past our table of plates of Huevos Rancheros were armed with a big buckle, western belt holstered pistol. We could hear the river as we ate - it ran fast and wide with rocky banks unwelcoming to a tent pitched on the edge of town.
Backtracking across the metal bridge over the Batopilas river we drove away from town to drop the Land Rovers down a rocky descent to a sandbar we had spotted on the drive in. The echos of us chopping driftwood for a fire brought Miguel, his father and dog Lobo from out of the canyon to share a meal and stories while the canyon disappeared outside of our fire’s glow. Before the sun rose, Miguel roused us from our dome tent to follow a dirt track deep into a neighbouring canyon. A Tarahumara man in a stacked stone house cut tire tread pieces to our foot size with a hatchet and wove leather straps to make their distinctive footwear; a reminder of our time in the canyon of Batopilas.
Heading north, I found the dotted line we had circled on our topo map using UTM coordinates and a handheld Garmin GPS 45. Off the main dirt road, the track was wide enough for our Land Rovers and would make for a shorter, alternate route to backtracking our way out. The track widened into valleys and followed the meandering course of a rocky creek past a small farm. Farther on, we squeezed through trees and crawled in low-range up an eroded hill.
When the map put us within 4 miles of the main road we faced another steep, rutted climb. Low-range, one at a time the Land Rover’s pitched and rolled while axles reached the limit of their articulation and spinning tires sent small rocks scurrying down the canyon. We made it back into the pines on the rim, and the track flattened out. Relieved, we fled the obstacle at dusty speeds and let the breeze dry the sweat of fuel range and broken parts anxiety.
From the looks on their faces our two vehicles at speed was as surprising to them as their camp was to us. I braked hard, with my brother behind me, as a kid in his late teens jumped off the back of a matte-green Dodge pick-up in the bent tube, troop carrier configuration. I stopped at his raised hand as other troops in dark green carrying big FAL rifles emerged from other pick-ups or their dome tents on the roadside.
Our passports were passed around with curiosity as we stood between our Land Rovers - two Canadians and an American. A soldier my age, early 20’s at the time, approached with a smirk on his face and his finger on the trigger guard of the FAL rile he held in the ready position. There was a flower stuck in the barrel. It looked like a yellow daisy - the kind you’d find growing careless in the wild or neatly arranged in gardens while strolling down a city street. My brother’s girlfriend spoke the most Spanish and after he spoke, gleefully, she said “He wants us to pull out the flower then put it back in.” He pointed the gun at each of us to take a turn. I felt every muscle in my body - that taut ready feel. Looking from face to face I saw nervousness, laughing smiles, disaproval and suspicous anger as we each took our turns.
Stern Spanish from the edge of camp ended the ordeal as an older soldier pulling up his zipper emerged from the trees. He collected our passports while ranting and roughly handed them back to us with a shoo gesture. We weren’t interested in the chastising and moved on - quickly. There was nothing to be done but drive and point out over the CB “Dude didn’t wash his hands before he grabbed our passports.” We were heading north to the paved road to Cascada de Basaseachi.
Barranca Del Cobre was one of the primary marijuana producing regions on one of the primary drug transport routes north when we visited in 1995. At the time, it was understood the military carried the FAL, the long arm of the free world, while the Narco’s carried more modern AR’s. The military controlled the canyon rim, while the canyon roads were controlled by armed Narcos in the back of lifted pick-ups with spotters standing on strategic corners with radios. I visited 2 more times during the early 2000’s and saw tourist infrastructure development that locals hoped would stabilize the region. The juxtaposition of the natural beauty and the warmth I experienced from the people we met with the threat of violence under militarization made for a lot of conflicting emotions. The best of human nature and the worst of it - all together in a big, beautiful crack in the world.