I'll take the low road.

March 22, 2012

So we had this short and easy drive from Lake Chapala to Etzatlan (yeah -- see previous post) and the other part of the charm was that we were now just a few kilometers from the cuota, the toll highway, to the west coast.  And so we were.  We had just missed the tiny snippet of information that there is no interchange between the local roads and the cuota for another 72 km.  Aha.

Now -- I cut my driving teeth on narrow, winding roads. I recall taking fiendish pleasure in scaring townies as I sped along the Conception Bay Highway as it was in the late '60s between Holyrood and Brigus.  Just last year we drove thousands of kilometers of unpaved roads through northern Quebec and Labrador.  I had the misfortune two years ago of taking the wheel of the RV just before we started an hour of impossibly steep highway, complete with switchbacks, overhangs, spindly bridges and zero pull-offs as we approached Puebla from the east.

That said, Highway 15 from Magdalena to Ixtlán del Río set a new benchmark for sharp curves and moments of sheer terror as we seemed suspended in the air over a straight drop of staggering depth.  We dropped almost 2000 feet in the 90 minutes it took to accomplish the 70 km.  (Excuse the mixed measurements.)  Jim drove.  I took a single picture and after that held tightly to both armrests the entire time.  

Our ordeal was ending as we entered the town of Ixtlán del Río and we agreed Jim deserved a break.  Just at this moment we saw a sign indicating 'RUINAS' ahead.  Past experience told us this would be worth a stop.  Mexico has more archeological sites than we can fathom, some of which are not well know even within the country.  This was another unheralded gem.  


To begin, we visited a small interpretation centre that housed excavated sculptures dating over a period encompassing about 1000 years from 300 BC onward.  The sculptures were retrieved from shaft tombs, vertical wells where diverse sculptures were placed as offerings for the deceased.  Some of the smaller pieces were displayed in a cave-like setting so visitors could appreciate their original placement.

Doesn't this man look Asian?

We were delighted with our museum visit and ready to return to the RV when one of the employees pointed us in the direction of a laneway and sent us off to the main site. 

High in the mountains

Valle de Juarez has an elevation of over 6000 feet above sea level, but from here you can still do some serious climbing.  A convoy of three vehicles took us up and up into the mountains.  I lack the superlatives to describe what we saw as we climbed.  You felt as if you could see into next week, the day was so clear and the view so long.

The narrow road wound round and around and we gazed down into green valleys, where a single house might be perched at the edge of a sheer drop.  How isolated it seemed, how mesmerizing the panorama.