narration taken from bob's journal entries...
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mexico
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The transition was rather sudden as we entered the Sierra Madres. The
burnt grass of the plains now had small trees to contend with, at first
just sprinkled about, but within a mile or two the density overcame the
grass. The slow and gradual rise suddenly turned steep. As we climbed
into the mountains I found a place to pull over to enjoy the view. From
above the transition from the high plains to the mountains could be seen
easily, as green turned to yellow. The view was breathtaking, I would
guess that I could see 60 miles off to the east from where I pulled off...
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Now we were in a
small canyon, with the water flowing at the bottom of it. We continued
down a windy path, before coming around a bend to have the canyon open
up in front of us. The walls of the canyon of to our left were several
hundred feet, high and the wall to the right were at least 500 feet.
The drop off was about 150 feet in front of us now. Nailed to one of
the trees was a small sign carved in wood, which showed the outline
of a man, who looked to be in the act of falling. I am guessing that
this was a warning not to climb over the fence...
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We headed down to the edge to look over. This was not quite what I had in
mind after driving four hours. The water did little more than trickle over
the edge. The falls were perhaps eight to ten feet across, with a drop of
almost a thousand feet. We could feel a light mist which came at us from
all angles as we approached the edge...
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The view around us seemed to be the real treat. The canyon was enormous,
perhaps half a mile or more from side to side, with the walls of the canyon
rising straight up 1,500 feet. The canyon turned off to the right before
curling left and out of sight several miles from where we stood. It was hard
to believe that running water had done all this...
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With the drunk guy still in the area, he approached us and offered to take our
pictures. After clicking away for us he headed over to the other side of the
water with his girlfriend, who looked young enough to be his daughter. I looked
over to see that all four of them had gone over the chain link fence, sitting
on a ledge that was no more that a couple of feet short of a thousand foot drop.
We had taken our pictures, and now headed back across the small bridge, and then
back up the trail to our car...
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A quick look around the small stores yielded
nothing of interest for me. I really wanted to buy something, but everything
being sold looked pretty shoddy. There was allot of hand made pottery, but nothing
was worth while.
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Restless for food, we decided that we would trek out again once more, back up
Victoria to one of the places that had caught our eyes a few minutes earlier.
The place was rather upscale, full of hip and trendy Chihuahuans, dressed to
impress. I was clearly out of place in my jean shorts and Nikes, but I didn't
care, I just wanted something to eat...
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We sat down with the two guys
who we quickly learned were brothers.... ...One of the brothers lived in Mexico,
while the other lived in Texas. It was quite funny to listen the brother from
Texas. Although their parents were Mexican, the brother from Texas didn't have
much good to say about his many stays in Mexico. He went on and on about how
bad all the food in Mexico was. He couldn't understand why street vendors
sprinkled chili powder on top of freshly squeezed fruit drinks, and why meat in
Mexico tasted different. It was all quite funny to listen to the big guy go on
and on about how bad things were in Mexico...
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We also bought a few post cards which we filled out and mailed off before
leaving. I couldn't help but to buy some churros from a lady selling them on
the street across from the post office while Bri filled out post cards. They
were incredible, they were so good that I got another bag once Bri came out
of the post office.
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I told Bri to
continue forward, across the plaza, and he did. As we crossed the
plaza, I am sure we got more than a few looks, we were clearly
driving in a place we weren't supposed to, but it got worse once we
were across. The road, which I thought would lead us out onto Calle
Victoria was actually a dead end, blocked off with a four inch curb,
which would probably have done in our rental car. Now we were in a
bind. We had been unable to get the car into reverse earlier in the
day, and had pretty much agreed that we would just have to make sure
that we didn't find our way into a place where we would have to use
it. Without reverse there was no other choice but for me to get out
and push the car back across the plaza, so push I did...
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We were happy to see that there was a Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken
in the plaza. Although they had both just closed for the night, they would
not be forgotten in the days ahead. With BK and Kentucky Fried out of the
question we walked around to check out some of the other restaurants in the
area. We walked by about a half dozen restaurants in our travels, but couldn't
decide on one...
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We walked about 50 yards down Victoria to the edge of a plaza, which was
overlooked by a large and beautiful church. In the middle of the plaza was
a statue of some Mexican hero, although I'll be dammed if I know what his
name was. There were many small ornate stands which housed shoe shiners,
along with a food vendor selling corn on the cob at the edge of the plaza...
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We also took a look at the pastries being sold.
Bimbo was Hostess of Mexico, but in my opinion, better. I say this even
before getting a taste, because their marketing campaign was great. Commercial
breaks during the football game were full of Bimbo advertisements. Keeping with
the football theme, Bimbo was packaging NFL stamps in each of their products.
So, there we were, in search of Bimbo products, and the cool NFL stamped that
came along with every purchase...
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Along the way we saw plenty of street vendors, selling things such as video
tapes, sun glasses, radios, and clothes. At one point we came across a market
of sorts, covered by a large network of tents, with a good half dozen narrow
aisles running criss cross below. Each vendor had the same ten foot store front
to sell their goods...
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Monday morning we packed the car, and took one last walk around the streets
of Chihuahua. We were hoping to do a little shopping before we left, but we
ended up doing allot...
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