Gil Parker
TARA TRACKS TO THE EDGE (excerpt)
Unique and Traditional Routes in Mexico's Barranca del Cobre
Our first near disaster met us on day one in the bottom of the Urique River canyon, 4300 feet down from our start on the plateau. All day I had been fighting "start-up pains," trying to keep up with Arturo's pace along narrow paths on cliff walls, dealing with unfamiliar heat and dehydration from the driving sun in the triangular lens of the canyon topography. Late in the afternoon, we were faced with an impassible gorge and had to climb 600 feet to clear the last barrier. As tired as I have ever been, I caught the others waiting at the pass. Down we staggered into the desiccated air of the valley bottom.
Finally, I could see the end of the day's trek, a gravel beach beside the minimal flow of the river. Ahead of me, Ron and Arturo passed a hovel, home to a Tarahumaran family, apparently vacant at the moment. I could see a dark shape on the beach, then it was gone. It was a little girl running from us, frightened by people she had never seen before, even into the river. She was drowning, too short to wade the stream, when Arturo reached her. Quickly, he dragged her out, pumped her chest several times to expel the water and got her breathing air again. By the time I arrived, she was chatting happily to Arturo in a language he doesn't comprehend. As she ran off to the house, we collectively shuddered.
"She didn't cry out or anything!" said Arturo. "Can you imagine the disaster that would have been?"
We could. We were the "gringos" intruding upon her world. Apart from placing a totally different complexion on our trip, Arturo's relations with the native peoples would be forever clouded. But in an hour, the girl's sister returned, driving goats from the opposite bank, probably where the little one had been headed. She took the news with equanimity. Children learn self-sufficiency early in this society.
