Finding a place to camp tonight was a pain. 99% of the time I was going up or down a steep canyon road that had nothing as far as a reasonably flat and secluded place to toss up my tent. The other thing that made it difficult is the number of people living in places that I wouldn’t have guessed anyone lived. The first place I found looked like an old trail that led down to a creek. I wasn’t there 20 minutes before a guy comes walking out of who knows where with a slingshot and a backpack. He didn’t seem to care that I was putting my tent up but he made it sound like the trail was a little more used than I thought. Even though I was pretty beat I packed up and kept climbing up the hill. I lucked out. Not 1/4 mile up the road I found another trail that goes back into the bushes about 50 feet. There’s even a little creek so I get to hear running water for the first time in a long time.

Speaking of wild, something dawned on me today. I haven’t seen a single wild animal since Baja. At least nothing bigger than a squirrel. I might have missed live things I guess but I’d at least see dead carcasses at the side of road. There hasn’t been a single thing. No deer, rabbits, coyotes, etc. It’s not hard to figure out why I suppose. Mexico is ranked among the five most heavily deforested countries in the world. No trees = no shelter = no animals.

Some stupid punk teenage girl annoyed me. In the last town I was in there was a sign next to a building that said La Cabana. A cabana sounded lke a good place to crash for the night so I asked how much. The entire time I was trying to ask about the place the girl was laughing like I was doing a stand-up routine. The Dad(?) was saying something but he talked so fast I couldn’t understand him. Finally I got fed up and left. I realized later that maybe she was laughing because that was the name of the “restaurant”; not that there was actually a cabana there. This place was a covered shack with no walls–it wasn’t any different than any other place I’ve seen so who knows. I hope I see her somewhere where they only speak English so I can laugh at her. We’ll see how she likes it.

It’s hilly on this mountain highway but the views are incredible. Water hasn’t been too hard to find which is good because I’m going through a lot of it. The towns/villages are populated by Indians, and even though I read you’re not supposed to, I couldn’t resist taking a quick shot of 2 of the girls walking along the road. They were just so freaking cute. I don’t think they saw the camera anyway. There were about 20 kids in total that just got dropped off from school. The boys all stopped and stared but about 8 girls saw me and ran off the road and hid. It was kind of funny.

GPX Track