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The timid wife of our guide Jose welcomes us with a sweet smile, donating us a white cheese form, just prepared with the milk of her cows. The lodge reminds those described in fairy-tales and gives a sense of peace, thanks to the slow flow of the river, a couple of meters from the veranda. Linda tells us that it was normal in the past to cross the river, and then the border, to dine with friends. Now you cannot, because if the border police sees some boats that venture at night on the calm waters of the Rio Grande, they point the guns to the sailors to “fight the illegal immigration”.
Jose waits for everyone to go to their rooms and then he calls me and my friend. Candlelight, he shows us his treasure: he opens a box of carved wood and begins to extract small blades. They are the tips of used hunting rifles from Native Americans, found in the surrounding area. I do not know why he wanted to share him most valuable objectives, but it’s amazing to think that humans sometimes do not need to communicate verbally to convey emotions and specially to understand the genuineness of an individual.
After a deep rest, at dawn we start the most intense day to reach the village of San Carlos. The Chihuahua Desert is not as sandy as the African one, it reminds of the sea bottom, with the main difference that the plants have thick and long thorns that can cause deep wounds if the horses pass too close to them. At sunset, with the full moon that peeps among the mesas on the horizon, we reach the craved destination on the eve of “All Saints”. Surprisingly, the long journey in the evanescent sun did not fatigue me, the slow advancing of Chocolate almost rocking me, allowing me to relax and cuddle between my thoughts. During the journey silence had dominated, not because there were tensions or dislikes, but because the vastness of the desert makes you feel almost non-existent despite the presence of traveling companions. At the doors of San Carlos, in the middle of nowhere, we meet Gloria. She has transformed the former husband’s house into a B&B, in my opinion the least frequented in the hotel history of Mexico. The hostess has crazy eyes and she is a hybrid between a cartoon and a fortune-teller, she feeds us with delicious burritos entertaining us with unrealistic tales. We stopped the boring monologue a bit abruptly to go to explore the town.
San Carlos stands at the foot of a plateau in which a crystal-clear stream is set. At the top, there is an abandoned silver mine that had made it very rich and lively in the recent past. On each street, there are decorations for the celebration of the “Day of the Dead”. Men in the fifties are accompanied by teenage wives (often in the second or third marriage), the famous quinseañera (fifteen years old girls). Often betrayed and abused, women must be well cared for and helpful, and when ephemeral beauty fades away, another girl will celebrate her fifteen-year conviction.
Continuing to wander around the village, we find ourselves in a square embellished by a small church at the end. Entering the dark place of prayer, we approach the candlesticks, the only source of light, and a phrase of St. Charles Borromeo conquers my heart: “to illuminate the others, the candle must consume itself”… we cannot be an example and support without sacrifices and without engaging with constancy, dedication, and determination, but above all we must be generous. At the back of the little church, there is a vast cemetery where some women cry, shout or quarrel on their husband’s grave as if at that moment their bodies and souls were resuscitated. Some lay down a small table, others grab the tomb with glittering garlands … religion and superstition tangle in a tricky maze, sometimes reaching the grotesque.
And our walk ends in heart of the celebrations: “The Rooster Fight”. While roosters, worth at least $ 1,000 each, fight to death on a ring secured by a high cage, clandestine bets multiply in the presence of police and children. On one hand, the town, as well as the county, are considered very poor, on the other hand men wear python boots and belts, betting $500 for each fight. Linda tells us that we are on one of the main cocaine smuggling arteries with the US and that only the previous week, three drug dealers had been hanged on one of the bridge we had crossed that same morning … Festina Lente
