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The Tarahumara are famous for being tireless runners through the canyons. They ran to these canyons from the plains to escape Spanish conquistadors. They hold a race while balancing a ball on a cricket-type wood bat.
Tarahumara Happy Hour in Copper Canyon
By Daniel
Our guide and former migrant smuggler, Jorge, generously poured the “margaras” as he liked to call the margaritas. His boss had instructed all lodge staff to imbibe, ensuring an even happier happy hour. But so plied, it was wise to stand back from the canyon rim as it dropped in stages over 5000 feet to the Urique River.
At 36, Ernesto had had multiple lives. He’d grown up in Ciudad Juarez and endured the drug trafficking there. He’d crossed to El Paso to work construction across the west and endured Prescott, Arizona’s draconian no Mexicans welcome municipal laws. He’d nearly perished with a group of smuggled migrants that he misguided in the desert and was rescued by the US immigration service. Down on Mexico’s southern border, he was nabbed by Mexican authorities smuggling Central Americans north. He spent a year in prison.
Margara inspired, Jesus (nicknamed Chuy) sung rancheros and boleros of such misadventures. Brian accompanied him on guitar as he crooned of Chihuahua, lost love and narco tales. Drug traffickers pay up to $100,000 to have songs written about their feats.
Here in Tarahumara land (the dominant indigenous group in Mexico’s north), amapola (heroin input) and marijuana are king. It sure beats trying to grow corn with its plummeting prices. No matter the harvest, the Tarahumara are famous for being tireless long distance runners, up and down these ravines, with or without burros, ferrying loads. In fact for the running competitions, they balance a ball on a stick over mountain paths, while they cover great distances. A running club from San Jose, California, had come to race with them and couldn’t keep up.
Copper Canyon dwarfs the Grand Canyon (perhaps 700 miles to its north and please don't let that observation be misconstrued as anti patriotic and thus ruin my chances of running for office someday) and is home to thousands of Tarahumara who settled here to escape enslavement by the Spanish during the conquest. The terrain is steep and crumbly, cactus abound, goats climb trees for forage and the women harvest sharp grasses with which to weave baskets. The hikes were a glorious mix of nature and culture – spilling waterfalls, frightening drop offs and verdant villages along mountain streams. To the kids, the hikes were death marches, but they’re not writing this blog. From the lip of a waterfall, still dripping from a swim and squinting to see the villages on the far side of the canyon, I followed military macaws across the sky – turquoise, black, and red. I’d hike a long way to see that.
By Daniel
Our guide and former migrant smuggler, Jorge, generously poured the “margaras” as he liked to call the margaritas. His boss had instructed all lodge staff to imbibe, ensuring an even happier happy hour. But so plied, it was wise to stand back from the canyon rim as it dropped in stages over 5000 feet to the Urique River.
At 36, Ernesto had had multiple lives. He’d grown up in Ciudad Juarez and endured the drug trafficking there. He’d crossed to El Paso to work construction across the west and endured Prescott, Arizona’s draconian no Mexicans welcome municipal laws. He’d nearly perished with a group of smuggled migrants that he misguided in the desert and was rescued by the US immigration service. Down on Mexico’s southern border, he was nabbed by Mexican authorities smuggling Central Americans north. He spent a year in prison.
Margara inspired, Jesus (nicknamed Chuy) sung rancheros and boleros of such misadventures. Brian accompanied him on guitar as he crooned of Chihuahua, lost love and narco tales. Drug traffickers pay up to $100,000 to have songs written about their feats.
Here in Tarahumara land (the dominant indigenous group in Mexico’s north), amapola (heroin input) and marijuana are king. It sure beats trying to grow corn with its plummeting prices. No matter the harvest, the Tarahumara are famous for being tireless long distance runners, up and down these ravines, with or without burros, ferrying loads. In fact for the running competitions, they balance a ball on a stick over mountain paths, while they cover great distances. A running club from San Jose, California, had come to race with them and couldn’t keep up.
Copper Canyon dwarfs the Grand Canyon (perhaps 700 miles to its north and please don't let that observation be misconstrued as anti patriotic and thus ruin my chances of running for office someday) and is home to thousands of Tarahumara who settled here to escape enslavement by the Spanish during the conquest. The terrain is steep and crumbly, cactus abound, goats climb trees for forage and the women harvest sharp grasses with which to weave baskets. The hikes were a glorious mix of nature and culture – spilling waterfalls, frightening drop offs and verdant villages along mountain streams. To the kids, the hikes were death marches, but they’re not writing this blog. From the lip of a waterfall, still dripping from a swim and squinting to see the villages on the far side of the canyon, I followed military macaws across the sky – turquoise, black, and red. I’d hike a long way to see that.
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