Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Days 3 & 4 -Hermosillo to Los Mochis

Well, here I am in the business centre of the Hotel American in Los Mochis. Here's what we've discovered about the Copper Canyon- you should take a week or two and do it right, and likely it would be more pleasant in April or May.

It is a 14-hour ride through a canyon 4-7 times as big as the Grand Canyon (depending on whose information you read), which is amazing on its own, but there are stops along the way that you should make for hiking and to learn more about the indigenous peoples. You can get off at Creel or Areponapuchic. We'll be doing more investigating and we'll definitely go another time.

Today was about walking around Los Mochis, which is a city of about 215,000, quite a step up from our little burg of 45,000 or so. It was nice just to get the feel of a busy city, and we wandered and went to the market in the morning.

Nice fountain, no idea what it signifies

In the afternoon we visited the botanical gardens: Sinaloa Park with its beautiful botanical gardens, which used to be the private garden of the Johnston family residence, called Casa Grande. Today it is home to an incredible variety of birds and the botanical gardens. Exotic plants from India, Indonesia, Africa and Australia are all cultivated here and some of them are very rare in Latin America, such as the Ficus Benghalensis, also known as the Banyan, the majestic tree from India, considered the sacred tree of the god Krishna by the Indians. It also has a many different types of palm trees and lots of local flora as well.

It was really relaxing, and it's refreshing to see so much greenery. It also had a lot of benches which is good for us older folks.

Heeheehee.. I recognize that sound, I have a gecko sharing this business centre with me. Cool, cheep on my little friend!



Our favorite is no whistling while picking flowers. What's yours?

The mansion is just a pile of bricks now, but they built this beautiful garden!



You can't get enough pictures of this gi-normous Banyan tree.

Turtles and lots of them! Tortugas.

We sat and enjoyed this pond for quite a while. The water was a bit brown but the sun and water were very sparkly.




All in all a nice day after a difficult time finding the hotel yesterday. It was a relief to find a map this morning in the tourist place next door. Tomorrow on to Mazatlan!

5 comments:

  1. Well that looks like a pretty good day. Doncha just love Banyan trees? They're so cool!
    The botanical gardens look so lush and green - my eyes are starting to crave colour! Beige is better than white, but I want to see a riot of colourful flowers! Lotta rules in those gardens though. No dropping cats' heads onto dogs' backs was my fave.
    Looks like you've mastered the photo sizing thing. We're enjoying seeing your vacation, I hope you're enjoying it too.

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  2. Looks like you're having a great time. So many things I am seeing through your eyes as we only worked when we were there and never had time to see all these wonderful things. Thanks for showing them to us and keep it up.

    Shirl

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  3. Yep, we are having a good time! I'm finally catching up on my sleep so I'm not breaking the rule, "no manejar cansado". (don't drive while tired).

    It's nice and warm here, and yes, so wonderfully green! Carl's doing an amazing job of picking great budget hotels.

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  4. Thanks, Shirl, glad you're enjoying it- I was working up to Sunday night, and will still have to work a half day here and there, but it's great to be traveling!

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  5. I know what you mean and I still yearn to have my camper but it was a big expense and we were not using it. May get a trip in the spring, motels will be cheaper than the upkeep on the camper. Hope to get to Vermont and MA in the spring but it won't be like Mexico. But each place has it's own charm. Looking forward to seeing pictures further south. Enjoy the heat we are having a snow storm today and Licia already has 15 inches.
    Shirl

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