Copper Canyon, Mexico - Satevo
Day 7 – Satevo Mission.
We left
Batopilas about an hour before sunrise by car
on a very rugged bit of mountain road out to see the sunrise at the Satevo
Mission. The mission is also known as the “Lost Cathedral" as nearly
all of its records were destroyed in a couple of fires so no one knowns for sure when it was built
or by who. On the
drive out, we passed by a kid walking in the dark towards Batopilas to go to
school. This was roughly a five mile trip for this kid. We snickered
about the stories we had heard from our grandparents about some variation of
walking to school, in the snow, uphill, both ways...This kid was living proof
that gramps may not have been totally BSing us. Once at the mission, I tried to do some long
exposure shots of the mission by moonlight, but they did not come out as well as
I had hoped. While the mission was impressive I was not pleased with the early
morning light either. We were back on the crude road back Batopilas about 30 minutes
after sunrise.
On
the way back to town we did make a stop at a very only cemetery just outside of town.
Some of tombstones were so old they were no longer legible.
The cemetery reminded of a scene from one of Clint Eastwood's westerns, High
Noon. We
did find one that read 1907, but I am sure there are many older ones there. We
made it back to our hotel in time to join the rest of the group for breakfast.
Since we had arrived in Batopilas the three phone lines that served the entire town
from a small store in the center of town had been down. I imagined
someone making a long walk up the canyon hand over hand checking the cable to
see where a goat had chewed through it or something like that. Around
mid-morning we got word that the phone lines were operational so we excitingly
strolled (the town is too relaxing to hurry in) over to the store.
Two calls and two voicemails were all I got.
I spent the middle part of the day practicing my siesta
skills before Kevin and I headed back out to Satevo to see how it looked in the afternoon
light. Paul and Joey had left an hour earlier and we planned to meet them
there. The road was much nicer to travel on via bike than by car and just about
as quick. The mission in the afternoon light was quite striking particularly
from a distance.
When Kevin and I arrived, Paul and Joey had already made
friends with the local kids as they let them ride their bikes around the mission
courtyard. We followed suit and had a great time watching the kids play. I
showed them how to work the gears and before we knew it we a little MTB crit
action going. The boys giggled on just about every lap and would
occasionally stop and swap bikes so they could get a feel for which bike they liked
the best. The thought did not escape us that these kids maybe riding bikes
that could be worth more money they will every see for a long time to come.
Here are some of the shots of the MTB crit.
After
a long break at the mission we reacquired our bikes and started to make our way back
to Batopilas. The afternoon light was bringing out the colors of the
canyon so we took our time and grabbed some photos. There was a rather
picturesque swinging bridge near the mission that we took some interest in
before heading off into the increasingly impressive glowing colors of the canyon
as sunset neared.
That night we enjoyed another really good meal
in a local restaurant while we discussed tomorrow’s big climb out of the canyon
that would involve 42 miles and over 7,000 feet of climbing if you made it all
the way to the top of Batopilas road. The general plan was that the van was
going to leave Batopilas at 8:30AM with an expected arrived time at the top of
the road of noon. If you got caught by the van, you had to get in. About five
of us had committed to attempting the climb out and most others shot for a goal
of La Bufa. Everyone had different times they were going to leave and I was
planning on leaving at 4:30AM to give myself 7 ½ hours to complete the climb. Blair thought I could do much better and started a little wagering pool on what
time I was going to get the climb done in or even if I could complete it.
These folks were obviously not paying attention to how many tequilas and cervezas I was having that night.