I ran into my brother this afternoon... Well anyway, today was a day of either hill climbing or descending and that is no bull... Zacatacas is NOTHING but hills, we even found that to be true in the mine tour yesterday. Our "campground" is deep down a cobblestone drive into which I had to back into the location they gave us and it just happened to be directly above the Federally parking and training center...we feel very safe and comfortable... Our journey today took us out into the city to enjoy the history, sounds, smell, and the excitement of Zacatacas. Beautiful architecture dating as far back as the 1700's, very tasty foods and coffees, even a Starbucks ... Driving into the "city" takes a lot of patience and in thd case of the fellow on the donkey selling a very potentially fatal drink that comes from fermented palm, a lot of guts.
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Our first day was finished with a couple of cocktails, but before then we had to visit the El Eden Mine... Our visit took us first into the deep dark of a silver mine that sinks over 900 meters below the city of Zacatecas and then finished up with a train ride out to the "trinket shops" above ground... I have to say, we have found the prices (except the highway toll chsrges ) on this journey of ours to be very resonable SO FAR...
As we pulled into Durango we immediately found ourselves in Sunday afternoon traffic and NO PLACE TO PARK our rig... we did do dome window tourist-ing as we drove by the "Centro" area but we decided to continue on towards Zacatecas. On one hand it was a good idea, but on the other... Well we arrived about 5pm which gave us 30 + minutes to find our campground before dark...YA RIGHT !!! Didn't happen but to hear the whole story tune in to a "personal" rendition in the future... Anyway we spent the night in a PEMEX Station (service station with a small convenience store). This morning we found the campground (with more stories to tell...)... Now this is "some campground"... Actually it is a 5 star hotel that just happens to accept a camper or two... 350 pesos ($21) a night. Attached a few feet from our door is the tram that takes you to the top of the mountain that sits in the middle of this city... amazing views, a great chapel, and a historical museum, all this in the "stratified air" of several thousands of feet. Brunch brought us Huevos Rancharo followed by a "Ride In The Sky" zip-line journey across the valley and back if you were lucky, all thst for just 200 pesos...
Well it was time to head for Durango and the "Devils Backbone". Once known as the "mountain range of marijuana, opium poppies, and being an accident prone road... I am here to tell you "we beat the road"... Of ALL the roads we have traveled "THIS ONE" is the road to take !!! It was an amazing "ribbon of concrete" that runs like a roller-coaster at times but was well taming, and that we did. Known as one of Mexico's greatest engineering achievements, 115 bridges and 61 tunnels over and through one of the toughest mountain ranges you could ask for... there were slot canyons below us as far as 900 feet or more as we crossed one or more of the bridges, and green, it was "GREEN" !!! One of the bridges, known as "BALUARTE" was well over 1,200 feet above the river below... Mazatlan Durango, we own you now and I'm telling ALL, you have to drive this route at least once, AND stop along the way and enjoy a wood fired Gorditos and for my first time, ATOLE...one amazing drink. I was going to mention, one of the tunnels along the route, the Sinaloense Tunnel, 1.87 miles long.. When you enter it you are immediately heading on a downhill right turn configuration at a 5 percent grade and the int changes...
We had a wonderful dinner tonight with our good friends from Woodinville, Ann and Will... Unfortunately our camera didn't fire off correctly so we missed a grest picture of them as we were leaving...sorry about that...
Mazatlan...and our camp ground at Cerritos. Great site, pool, beach on both sides, lots of little restaurants, and one great coffee shop. Our last dinner with Sol and Carol and then they head south to La Penita.
A NEW stop for us as we headed for Mazatlan... ALTATA... It is a wonderful resort destination for the Mexican families in and around Culiacan. Not ONE word of English is understood or spoken which I find wonderful and encouraging. All the streets and the HUGE malecom are paved with inlaid multi-colored bricks. We obviously were there "off-season"as we had the whole place to ourselves... Tomorrow Mazatlan and "Fat Fish".
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