Above the Rocks, Beneath the Stars 3

I recommend that you read "Above the Rocks and Beneath the Stars" and "Above the Rocks, Beneath the Stars 2" for background before reading this final section.



In the morning after this, our second night on the canyon bottom, we loaded the burro and headed back up the canyon wall. We arrived in Tejaban in the late morning. As we approached Ramona’s house, we encountered two of her children, a young boy and girl playing in the dirt with a wheelbarrow. They smiled excitedly when they saw us and ran ahead to the house.

On arriving at the house, we unloaded the burro, and the little boy was sent back to get the wheelbarrow. This he did, tearing through the dirt at full speed in his bare feet while he clutched a long knife in his fist. Soon after, a woman and two children showed up. Ramona’s son returned, unharmed in spite of his run with the knife.

The children laughed and smiled broadly at Dylan and me. Then they tried to engage us in conversation. When I replied, “No hablo Español. Solo un poco,” they thought this was very funny. When we went inside to eat, Ramona’s son brought in a coloring book and sat on the floor in front of the open door, ostentatiously turning the pages. The other children stood in the doorway and watched us. Ramona’s daughter now had the knife, and she ran the flat of the blade over her cheek, as if to say, “Look at what I have!” After the meal, as Dylan and I waited outside, the children again attempted to engage us. Ramona’s daughter sat near me and showed me her toy, a battery-operated device that produced English phrases when she pushed its buttons.

Dylan and I seemed to be celebrities. Perhaps the attention we received was due to the novelty of our appearance. Or perhaps the children had been exposed in the past to generous gringo hikers who offered gifts to friendly boys and girls.

We returned to the first night’s campsite, the site of my dream in the cave, arriving in the late afternoon after a slow hot dusty walk. The next morning we retraced the hike from Reyes’ home in Cusárare. This section covered a landscape devoid even of the primitive roads we had seen over much of the trip. Reyes confirmed my guess that the homes in this area belonged to the Tarahumara people for whom the area is named.



The Tarahumara came to the mountains to evade Spanish colonists and priests in the sixteenth century. To this day, they assiduously maintain their separate culture and their distance from mestizos and white people, including tourists. In spite of knowing this, I had hoped to have some interaction with them, but would be largely disappointed.

Tarahumara women and girls were easily recognized in their brightly colored, often intricately patterned clothing, which included a scarf, shawl, blouse, skirt, and wool stockings. The men whom we saw tended to wear the same outfits as the mestizo men of the area. Dylan and I encountered two exceptions in the town of Creel, before beginning our canyon excursion.

Late in the afternoon, a thin, gray-haired Tarahumara man with a bulky burlap grainsack mounted on his back trudged into town on the railroad tracks. He wore the traditional Tarahumara clothing: sandals, a brightly colored broad headband, and a white knee-length skirt cut in a V on the sides so that his thighs were exposed. A woman followed about five to ten paces behind the man. When he entered the town square and paused to get his bearings, the woman stopped also, maintaining her five to ten paces separation. She spoke to the man, as if offering advice, and he replied over his shoulder before they resumed their single file march.

Early the next morning, as Dylan and I stood in the empty street outside our hotel, we encountered a younger but also traditionally dressed Tarahumara man. We offered the greeting, “Buenos días,” to which he replied, “Buenos días” in a manner at once quiet, warm, and respectful. He seemed to embody the gentle and kind character that is attributed to the Tarahumara in the literature.

On our hike to the canyon, we saw another example of the Tarahumara way. We came off the trail onto a dirt road at the top of a ridge, and saw a young man and woman looking out over a valley. The man was well dressed in cowboy style, with a guitar strapped over his shoulder in the playing position. The scene must not have provided the right inspiration, because they moved on, with the man holding the guitar as if ready to perform and looking about as if searching for the right spot. As they strolled down the road, the young woman stayed behind about five to ten paces. I asked Reyes, through Dylan, if the men and women always walked together this way. His response was simply, “Siempre (always).”

The homes we saw were small farms, of a few acres each, devoted largely to the cultivation of maize. The work was done by hand and by animals. We found farms in tight little valleys by remote streams, on small flat areas at the tops of ridges, and on slopes that would never be touched by a plow in the United States. On a later short excursion near Divisadero, we walked along a steep incline that appeared to consist solely of gravel and rocks. Looking down, I saw to my surprise that we were in the midst of a maize field. Little shoots of corn were poking out where the rock had been cleared to make tiny circles, each large enough for three or four seedlings.

The homes and buildings were made of logs or unmortared stone, with roofs of corrugated metal or long rough boards running from the peaks to the eaves. Sometimes a portion of the roof was left open. Fences were made of rails or stacked stone.

There is one other type of dwelling favored by some Tarahumara. At the beginning of the journey to the canyon, as we climbed the ridge above Cusárare, Reyes pointed to a wide opening in a cliff above us and announced, “Tarahumara!” A large boulder along with stones stacked on either side formed a wall in its mouth. It was home to a family who, like Candelario and a number of others, chose to live in a cave.

As we passed the homes, we rarely saw people, except for the occasional farmer working in the distance or the woman or child hiding behind a door and peering out at us from the darkness. An exception occurred early in our journey to the canyon, when we passed by a little girl who tended a small herd of goats in the partial concealment of some trees. Apparently caught by surprise, she froze, stick in hand, and watched us march by.

Tarahumara women and children were frequent sights around the towns and tourist sites, where they sold shawls, carvings, and other crafts to tourists, but they were nevertheless unapproachable for people like Dylan and me. Even when we attempted to purchase their wares they avoided eye contact and never smiled. If we asked “Cuánto questa (how much does it cost)?” they mumbled a barely audible response. Compliments on the quality of their work brought no reply. If we looked in the direction of a girl or young woman, she was likely to cover her lower face with her shawl or hand.

The name, “Tarahumara,” is translated as “the runners” or “the light-footed ones.” During a brief excursion that took place after our journey with Reyes, Dylan and I encountered an example of their speed and surefootedness. We stayed overnight at a town near Divisadero and arranged for a half-day hike down a canyon trail the next morning.

Our guide turned out to be a quiet young Tarahumara man with an easy smile and a large belt buckle that said “Hell on Wheels”. Our mild-mannered guide did not speak English, so he may not have known the meaning of those words. Nevertheless, as we set off into the canyon I discovered that they were appropriate.

A heavy rain had fallen during the previous afternoon and evening, and the footing on the steep trail was just as treacherous as the others we had encountered, with the added challenge that it was wet and muddy. Nevertheless, our guide set a pace that would have been brisk on dry flat land. Even Dylan struggled to stay with him, and I resorted to running wherever the terrain allowed. I entertained an angry suspicion that he was putting us to some kind of test. But I also wondered at the exquisite sensitivity that allowed him to stride effortlessly where we had to consciously test each step.

It seems that our guide’s haste stemmed from a desire to get us to the scenic portions of the trail as soon as possible, because our pace slowed after we attained an open view. Eventually we reached the end of a ridge projecting into the canyon, where we could see deep and far in both directions. By now the monsoon season was just beginning, but it was already transforming the steeply sloping canyon walls from dusty brown to lush green. The river, patient but resolute, slithered toward its destiny through the narrow channel far below. We tarried to admire this by now familiar spectacle before returning to the top by a different route.

On the way, we passed a young Tarahumara girl who, caught in the open on the slope above us, covered her mouth with her hand. Soon after, we encountered a group of women and girls who ignored us while hoeing a steeply sloping cornfield. A boom box sat in the dirt, incongruously discharging modern pop music into this primitive and exotic setting.

A strenuous hike to the top of the canyon brought our Sierra Tarahumara adventures to an end. Dylan and I said goodbye to our guide, walked the two miles to Divisadero, and caught the train that would begin our journey homeward. We had been in the canyon country for ten days.



Although Dylan and I saw much beauty and spectacle during our stay, we could have experienced equally impressive natural wonders without leaving the United States. The people of the countryside offered something more precious. By living their lives before us, they enriched the context of our own.

Meanwhile, I worked hard at being alert and aware. The world became a little less solid and yet a little more real, a vibrant link between the ethereal rocks beneath us and the violent stars above. Scales of time and size took on different meanings. As I lay on the canyon floor and gazed at the black sky, I felt as if I was peering at the universe from the bottom of a tiny crack in a grain of sand.

We were suspended in time, temporarily removed from a society obsessed with control. Life could be compared to Reyes’ willful burro, or to the intractable automobile of my dreams. It seemed reasonable to struggle less and just enjoy the journey.

That lesson resonates in my mind today, although I have yet to fully master the art of living in the now. But however much or little headway I make in that regard, I will always have the memory of that unique and enriching experience. Most precious of all is the knowledge that this was something I shared with Dylan, my son, guide, interpreter, and close companion on our journey to Copper Canyon.