Alamos and Basaseachic Falls
Edmundo, our Los Mochis host set us up with directions to drive around the Copper Canyon and some recommendations on places to visit. Our first destination was the small 17th century town of Alamos. The town is yet another Pueblo Magico and magical it is. Alamos was once the center of commerce for the silver mines in the area, consequently there are some amazing homes built in the classical colonial style with big arches everywhere and the classic square footprint building with courtyards in the middle. Owing to the wealth that was in the region at one point, many of the houses have multiple courtyards and are really fantastic to check out. Some of the homes have been carefully restored and some turned into hotels, while others are left abandoned and are slowly decaying (a sad symptom of most formerly wealthy towns). Luis couldn’t stop daydreaming about buying one of the disintegrating houses and fixing it up.
One particular home, now a hotel, caught our eye. The owners of Hacienda de Los Santos have purchased and restored several homes and connected them all through tastefully landscaped grounds, a lot of care and thought has gone into this place. When we walked in to check it out we were immediately greeted by a few different people obviously semi unhappy, yet polite and protective of the privacy of their high end customers. We really wanted to check out the place, so Luis went in to the office to talk to the lady in charge, and proceeded to improvise by telling her we were scouting out places for a wedding and were interested in checking the hotel out. She was immediately happy to answer any questions, and next thing we knew we were treated to an all inclusive tour of the place. The grounds are huge, with a maze of hallways leading to many courtyards with rooms along the edges. We counted at least three or four courtyards and all of them featured a swimming pool, a small putting range and all very nicely landscaped. At some point they expanded the hotel to include a large property on the other side of a small creek and now a small rock arch bridge connects the properties. The bridge leads into another very large grassy area and some old stone buildings that included a restaurant, a high tech theater, and a bar. The bar features a selection of over 100 different tequilas and is open to the public, tempting us to return later that evening to try some of them out. As the final part of the tour, our host walked us into the presidential suite, I guess figuring if we were planning a wedding we would need the honeymoon suite to go along with it. The room is very opulent, but beautiful and is more like a small house than a room (at 750 bucks a night I guess it would have to be). The suite has a nice living room area, a big bedroom with a fireplace and a very large, very comfortable looking bed and two bathrooms. Yes, you read that right, two bathrooms…a his and hers. Each bathroom is larger than our bedroom back home. In a small courtyard between the two bathrooms there is a very inviting large tub for soaking. Needless to say this place was extra-planetarily out of our budget, but it was really cool to check it out. We think we might have to stick to this idea of claiming we’re looking for a wedding location in order to get this special tour of nice hotels. No! It is not what you are thinking people, there really isn’t going to be a wedding anywhere in the near future, but they don’t have to know that and since there is only a handful of people reading this blog there is no danger in being found out 
From Alamos we headed northeast to the Basaseachic Falls high up in the Sierra Madre Occidental in the state of Chihuaha. It is a long windy road in and we arrived right as the sun set. We generally like to have camp set before dark, but the long windy road had its own plans for us… We had planned on staying at a free campground at the top of the falls, but as soon as we stepped out of the truck we realized there was no way we were camping for the night, the temperature was somewhere in the twenties! We found some cabins nearby and after a bit of haggling with the manager, we moved into our expensive log cabin. It was a really nice place to stay and luckily our cabin had a stocked fireplace, the only heat source for what turned out to be a sub-zero night.
The next day we stepped out of the cabin to find this:
Our first flat! Brand new BFG AT's! But it could not be that simple...
For the life of me we could not find a leak, so we inflated the tire with our handy Chinese 12v air pump and drove to the nearest tire place… they were as baffled as us. No leak could be found so they added more water to the “pool” they use to find air bubbles leaking and realized the leak was coming from a tiny fissure in the rim itself, BF Goodrich was vindicated! They wanted to sell me a similar sized non matching rim, but I had them take the tire off and weld a bead inside the rim along the fissure… tell me if this is dangerous (it couldn’t be more dangerous than the young man connectig the bare wires of the welder directly to the breaker box). The wheel has held so far.
After the flat ordeal we hiked down to the falls where we were absolutely blown away, we didn’t expect the falls to be as amazing as they are. The Basaseachic falls are the highest year round flowing falls in Mexico at 807 ft tall. Piedra Volada (Flying Stone) falls are taller, but are only flowing during the rainy season. The canyon in which the falls are located alone is worth the visit, with sheer rock walls dropping what seems like a thousand feet into the river below. There is a trail that leads down to the top of the falls where you can overlook the pool below. Standing at the top and looking down gives you a tickle of fear up the spine, as it is such a sheer drop down to the pool below. The trail continues down to other lookouts where you can see the falls from a distance, and if you are feeling up to it you can follow the trail all the way down to the bottom of the falls. We were running out of time and didn’t make it all the way to the bottom, which might not have been a bad thing, considering that the climb back out may have killed Luis (just kidding).
January 4th, 2010 at 8:59 am
great photos guys!!!! keep it coming
January 5th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Ah ha! That tire sitch sounds like it sucked! And hey! Whaddya mean only a handful of people are reading this??? Not true, I’m sure!