Marta’s posts are getting much better – so I’m feeling much less need to tell the story of our trip. She’s better at it.
In Hidalgo del Parral, we see 20 million tons of mine tailings being trucked away. A Canadian company, GoGold, is hauling it 11km out of the city, leaching it for remaining silver, and hopefully doing a good job of putting the rock flour away for eternity.
Lead mine tailings are bad. Especially for children. Makes you dumber, which dramatically increases your chances of becoming a career criminal.
GoGold is a public company, and with the current price of silver, they are doing good. Nice to see a Canadian company succeeding in the wider world. And not just fooling around like so many of our small exploration companies – actually running an operational business
Our legit mine tour of the La Prieta mine in Parral was a letdown after the adrenaline of our working mine tours. Still, compare this giant winch to the modified truck we seen working a few days before. The river through Parral. There is a dam upstream, but I’m amazed the city is confident enough to pave and use the river for parking.Chihuahua city was frustrating – lots of art galleries, no proper museums. ChatGPT suggested this locomotive repair shop – and of course, it’s a gallery.We stopped in the city of Delicias – the city layout looks very striking. Until you are driving, and your GPS says “take the 7th exit from the roundabout”Marta now has a dual screen setup for video editing, using our projector. One less excuse for being bad at video. We stopped for some stranded Americans. A severe exhaust leak started melting coolant hoses. Managed to bypass the cabin heater and somewhat plug the exhaust leak with beer cans and tie wire. I wonder how long that repair held up for. And how the drive to Kansas was with no heat…
That was a scary corner of Mexico. After Chihuahua city, I was craving adventure so we headed to the desert. And foolishly got within a few hours of the USA border.
No one would stop to help this truck, and these two families were very worried about being stuck on this highway for night. After getting them going, we took off on our planned route down a dirt road. Every side road was padlocked for 100km. Not the Mexico we know.
Finally we found a jog in the fence to get some distance from the highway for night. 30 minutes later, a truckload of ranchers came down from the hills to figure out if we were a threat. They were very clear – this road is dangerous, this area is dangerous. Watch out for bad men.
I had a sleepless night. The lizard brain said – just drive, get out of here. But the safest thing is to just sit tight and wait for the sun. And then we left. The desert looked boring anyway, even if there was a big iron mine.
This mining town (Santa Maria del Oro) was still a big enough deal in the 1930s to justify putting in 3 BIG diesel generatorsThis is the weirdest looking dog I’ve seen in a long time. Part wolf? No wagging tail here
Doing some more flying from the car. You can really see the effect of a rough road in desert footage, bouncing the pilot (me) around.
And some old footage from the canyons, using our camera drone. The canyon roads of the Sierra Madre Occidental are our favorite bit of Mexico so far. Marta will write about us getting hammered for 36 hours by freezing rain – I’ll just drop in this photo of some police who built a snowman in the bed of their truck The higher we are in the canyons of Durango and Chihuahua, the happier the trees are. This tree was only 50 years old.We stop at a sawmill. This particular mill seems to specialize in smaller pieces of wood. Including specialized sizes for broom handles and fruit baskets.Sharpening bandsaw blades.
Loud!Didn’t get a good answer what their customers do with the wood chips – probably heating If you know, you know If you drive on Mexican roads, you’ll learn what this isThe town of Topia is very industrial. Most people walk (in their coveralls from the mine), some drive their quads and dirt bikes.This kid has his own tuk-tuk taxi business, and is very proud of it. We finally see deer – someone has 8 deer fenced in their backyard. Mexico doesn’t seem like a place where people respect hunting laws. Not too much edible wildlife
Our friends we meet in the hills above Topia are excited to get a video of their home town. I later give some instruction to a young man, and he flies Icarus 4km to the next town. And we get the drone back.
We drive down in the canyons to see a new silver mine. One of the miners is very curious about a cave that’s just down the Ravine from their mine, and asks me to get footage of it
They are confident enough in their mine’s prospects to invest in a way to get the ore to the road. Works good!Their silver vein – and thus the mine shaft – is exactly in the canyon. Will be messy when it rains.
Marta and Chester's Maleficent Adventures 