Day 5, 13th Dec

There was a gorgeous sunrise and after breakfast, we took a final look at the view from our balcony.

While waiting for our bus we noticed three horses standing untethered but not moving an inch. If only I could train Rosalie like that.

The school bus was almost ready but before we left they had to put all the luggage in first on the back seat as there was no cargo compartment. Pancho was a bit panicked as he got the wrong baggage count but eventually got it sorted and we were on our way.

It was just over an hour’s drive to Creel but first, we had to visit the Valley of the Frogs and Mushrooms. On the way, we were held up and robbed yet again. Even the photo op cost me my last 5 pesos.

The church in the valley was built in 1738. There are no seats and everyone has to stand, men on the left, women on the right. One thing we noticed was that we saw lots of women and kids but few men. We think they were all away working in the mines.

After finally arriving in Creel, we found a restaurant recommended by Pancho and a few of us ordered our meal. While we waited an eight-year-old girl came and stood beside me. She was fascinated with the pictures I was looking at on my phone. I took a picture of her and she loved it.

Martina is very outgoing and before long we had a guest for lunch at our table. Her name was Mariela selling trinkets. Martina had tried to bargain with her earlier but to no avail. The young lady pulled up a chair ordered her lunch and drink and sat and enjoyed the conversation. When her lunch of eggs and beans arrived she tried but didn’t know how to handle the knife and fork so Martina helped her. She knew how to work just the fork and was soon shovelling it in. After we had finished and were preparing to leave Mariela was still trying to sell us stuff.

When we took the Europe trip I thought it would be fun to say “When I was in Monte Carlo.” But saying that we had lunch with a Tarahumara (Rarámuri) cutie is way more impressive; a very unique experience.

The bus was due at 2:00 pm so a few of us visited the Tarahumara museum before meeting up with it.

The drive to Chihuahua took four hours but we had a luxury coach and wasn’t too bad; I even slept for a bit. After checking in and getting changed, Rosalie and I went out to find yet another ATM as funds were getting low again. I think it was all the ‘robberies’ we had to put up with.

On the way to the ATM, we found that the road was blocked. We had to have our temperature taken and hands sanitized before we were allowed to walk down the street to the bank. Over the last few days, this has become a common theme. We even had to do it going into the museum.

After dinner with Martina, I ordered a bottle of wine for the room and settled down to write up the blog.