We're now in Copper Canyon, the land of the Tarahumara. In Mexico they call this the Sierra Tarahumara (the Tarahumara mountains). [We tend to agree with the Mexicans about the perspective - it's *mountains*. ]

The Tarahumara people who have lived here for centuries are a fascinating people. The women are brightly dressed and the men have a special skirt that seems specially adapted to running, for which they are world famous.

The Tarahumara speak Spanish generally only as a second language (if at all) and live dispersed all over this region. They might live many, many hours on a winding mountain path from the nearest town or road. They seem quite shy, but this little girl gave Nancy a very pretty smile.

A couple of nights ago we stayed in Humirá with some of the most impressive people we've met on the trip. Humirá is right before the really big climb out of the second canyon out of Creel, and we got there about 4:30, knowing we had about 25K and more than 2000 feet of climbing ahead of us. We stopped to chat with a farmer out working with his whole family on clearing trimmed wood from their apple orchard. When we decided to bail for the night we rode back and asked them if we could stay at their place. That's how we met Efrén. We helped with the wood-hauling until dusk, and then set up the tent. They fed us beautiful blue corn tortillas in the evening (we got to see the whole process).  read more here... lee mas aquí... »

Near Navojoa, Sonora, we ended up riding with a very interesting local person, Luís Alfonso Valencia. He's a true Mexican bicycle commuter. He rides 25 kilometers (15 miles) each way every day to his job as a heavy equipment operator for the state of Sonora. All this on a single-speed bike. We were impressed. And he gave Randy a real run for his money in a little race. Only when Randy had (many) more gears to speed up with did he pull away.

Do you notice the wonderful reflectors he has for safety on the back of the bike? They're discarded CDs. So why do we use anything else? We're going to try to get some for our bikes.

In the flat agricultural region from Navojoa to the sea we saw many, many cyclists, mostly on bikes like Luís's. In one small city we saw three bike shops in one small region of the downtown. And we've seen bike shops in several towns we've been in. We're just hoping they have some of the parts we need when the time comes.

We re-did the website - Hope you like it! You can now get to lots of things on the links up on top. Some of the changes:

• Info from all of the trips is available in order if you want it that way. It's kind of hard to read everything backwards! So for example, you can choose "Canada" from the top of the screen and read about our Canadian adventures in order.
• Buttons on the top lead you to the most-commonly-requested articles.
• I added a "Contact" page in case people want to get in touch with us.

Here are the photos from our Big Trip (2006-2009):

• Nancy's Art or (as a slideshow).
• We also have our favorites from the trip here.
• Canada Photos - Starting from Inuvik
• USA West Coast Photos
• Mexico:
• Arizona down to Alamos, Sonora (or as a slideshow)
• Alamos to Parral (Copper Canyon) (or as a slideshow)
• Parral south to Zacatecas - March/April 2007
• South from Zacatecas
• Mexico City and around
• Cholula south through Oaxaca state,

We stayed a police station last night. Evening came, and dark was nipping at our heels as we came to a intersection of two roads. The store and the gas station were the only thing around and they were both closed. The man with the little hot dog stand was closing up but had four hot dogs for sale which we gladly purchased and greedly wolfed down.

In the dark we noticed another building with a TV playing and a police car in front. We went to the door and knocked. We asked permission to camp there at the police station, a very safe place to stay.

Two of the policement asked if we needed anything.. I said yes - I would like two cans of beer. They went to the town many miles away 45 minutes later drove back with their lights flashing. The beer had arrived.

There are 5 guys who live at the station for a week to ten days, 24 hours a day. They make 100 dollars a month. Wow.  read more here... lee mas aquí... »

It took us the better part of three days to ride south from Santa Ana to Hermosillo (arriving today). We camped two nights in fairly raw desert surroundings. Both nights we got to sundown without an established place to camp, so we stopped at a locked gate, unloaded our bikes, lifted everything over, and found a place to camp. Last night (shown in this picture) was a beautiful place among the cows and coyotes and cactus.

Riding along the four-lane divided highway that is Highway 15 I was thinking about some of the things I like about Mexican drivers. Two things I like:

1. The Mexican drivers do their absolute best to give us some space on the road. The truck drivers try to move over as soon as they see us (and there are two lanes in each direction, so it works most of the time).

2. Mexican drivers know how to use their horns to communicate, not just to irritate. They have one honk to say "watch out" and another to say "go for it" and yet another to say "hey -what a beautiful woman!"