Sanborns Sombrero Club, Mexico Today--Winter 1999

Our stay (at Paraiso del Oso) was too short but this is a place that I’ll visit again... This hotel occupies one of the prettiest sites imaginable--especially during or after the rainy season...

Invariably, in a family-run establishment, the results are only as good as the hosts. They set the tone, make the decisions, provide the personality and, ultimately, determine whether the venture will succeed or fail. Based on that, Paraiso del Oso will be a raging success for years to come. Transplanted American Doug "Diego" Rhodes and his charming Mexican wife, Ana Maria, have built their business, literally, from the ground up and have done a superb job. Not only will you feel right at home during your stay, they offer an amazing array of day trips or longer trips into the areas of the canyon you wouldn’t otherwise see.

Doug personally guides many of the trips and you’ll know you’re in good hands. His experience leading trips through the canyons goes back many years and that experience and knowledge are very important to your safety--especially in traversing the lands of the Tarahumara, who are a very guarded and private people. He knows these people and they know and trust him, a point that can’t be overemphasized.

What sets their hotel apart from other canyon retreats is the quality of their horse stable. The horses are descendants of those used by the Spanish Conquistadors who arrived 500 years ago. This has been mixed with Quarterhorse and Appaloosa blood. Bred for endurance and dependability, they average between 14 and 15 hands.

The hotel is a single-story rectangular shape, constructed equally of adobe and concrete block. The 21 rooms are simple but very nice, lit by kerosene lamps. The lobby is connected to the restaurant and bar and outdoor patio, where Doug concocts some of the group meals. Our group was served a fine meal with margaritas and beers available to wash down the road dust. Afterward we were serenaded by Gloria, a woman from Colombia who now does television work in Chicago. As she strummed here guitar and beautifully sang Spanish songs well known to a few in the group, we gringos could only tap our feel and jealously marvel at the magic of the moment knowing that we had found a place to remember.

Easter on Horseback

by Michael McGuire

The Easter ride into Mexico’s awe-inspiring Copper Canyon begins with three days of shakedown jaunts to acquaint the rider with the kind of mountain terrain they can expect.

Our days of conditioning are bolstered by first-class meals and clear, silent nights under a sky full of stars. The beds in the spacious rooms are excellent and there are private bathrooms and hot showers waiting after each long day’s ride. Light is provided by oil lamps, which are polished every day by a willing staff. If heat is necessary, the staff builds a friendly wood fire in the stove.

A large dining room with original art of horses and Tarahumaras completes the picture. Together with sunken bar and fireplace and an outside firepit for Mexican nights, there is something about the atmosphere that makes meeting and sharing experiences with other guests especially inviting.

Rancher Doug Rhodes was not born to horses, but when he saw his chance, he took it. Together with his wife, Ana Maria, he is owner of Rancho del Oso. Together they oversaw construction of the guest facilities and a lovely enclosed garden at the ranch. It was indeed a labor of love.

On the first day we ride about 15 miles through the kind of varied forest that’s possible only where the land has never been clearcut. We camp on a ledge with a 180-degree view. On the far rim, through much of the night, a forest fire will rage unfought. It will burn up the ridge until it can burn no farther.

Each night a small corral is set up for our horses. A wrangler takes care of them, even doing necessary reshoeing on the trail. It is up to us to leave no trace of our passage for it is unregulated here. In its total freedom, it is the West that was. Only here it is still the West that is, you can ride anywhere you want.

After a hearty breakfast, we begin the descent toward the river sparkling below us. The horses pick their way down loose rock and between boulders, somehow never gashing or cutting their legs. After lunch in the best restaurant in the old gold-mining town of Urique, we ride a couple of miles up the canyon to a deep point in the river. here we unsaddle and swim the horses who are a little uneasy at first but finally trust us and seem to enjoy it after all.

At dusk drummers descend from the hills. Then black-and-white painted diablos inspired with milky, home-brewed tesgüino, begin to dance, threatening one and all with mock weapons. Finally, the candlelight processions from one end of town to the other begin. Life-size holy images are carried back and forth until dawn. At time we join the processions. These ceremonies are not performed for tourists and we are the only outsiders in Guadalupe this night.

On Easter morning we saddle up and load the pack horse. After witnessing the burning of Judas in the plaza, which ends the ceremonies, we ride out of town following the river farther upstream, beyond roads now. After fording the river, we ride into the front yard of a lovely house with bougainvillea and a 360-degree view of the canyon rims above it. Here we meet with a Tarahumara from Naranjo, the mountain hamlet where we will spend the night.

I converse with this Tarahumara man as we ride up the mountain. It is interesting to note that he is used to moving much faster than the horses, is never winded, doesn’t seem to sweat, and is frequently waiting for us. I knew the Tarahumara were renowned for funning great distances over rough country, but it never occurred to me they could outpace horses in these mountains.

After some scrambling, we ride into the roadless village of Naranjo where there is a little excitement because some of the women think I’m the priest riding up to give mass. A few moments later we are being offered tall glasses of cool water in the garden of the Tarahumara who walked up with us. After another idyllic night camped in an orchard beyond all sounds of cars or airplanes, beyond city lights that might obscure a sky full of stars, we awake to scrambled eggs and sausage prepared by Doug’s wife Ana along with the best tortillas I have ever eaten. The ground corn went straight from the metate (grinding stone) to the patting hands of the señora of the house to the stove top to my stomach.

We saddle up to undertake the steepest part of the trip. Only once does the pack horse have to be unloaded and his load carried--around a narrow bend with a rock wall on one side and a considerable drop-off on the other. One guest has the impression that her horse has stumbled on a slippery rock, but she is soon calmed by Doug. Several times we dismount to lead horses but every time I realize that I am not nearly as sure-footed as the horses.

Several hours later we are out of cactus and back in pines at over 7000 feet and tending downhill towards the Rancho del Oso at 5400 feet. We come home to hot showers, smoked Chihuahua pork chops, chile rellenos and our good beds.

Juniata (Pennsylvania) News--July 15, 1997

We spent two back to nature nights at the Paraiso del Oso Hotel. This rugged resort is dedicated to the natural and cultural history of the Copper Canyon area. Air conditioning is not needed because of the cool mountain air, and kerosene lamps provide lighting. John joined a group who thoroughly enjoyed horseback riding. Many hikers and backpackers gravitate to this area from worldwide. At another point John hiked three miles around the rim. Owner Diego Rhodes said that "Many businesses claim to be like it was in the wild west but here we still live the wild west". Doug’s 12-day horseback riding package is considered the toughest in North America.

A barbecue lunch was a highlight of a bus ride into the mountains of the Urique Valley. Later we had the thrill of observing a Tarahumara Indian festival adjacent to the local church highlighted by colorful ceremonial dancing and an ox roast.

Travel Hotline Mexico--October/November 1997

One hotel in this rugged region that organizes great excursions is Paraiso del Oso, a true ecotourist paradise.

View from the Mountain Side

by Editha Bartley

I had stayed with Doug Rhodes at his Rancho del Oso and wanted to ride with him again. But this ranch is so remote you "almost can’t get there from here." Doug gets to El Paso once a month to pick up mail, so we had little communication with him. The road into the ranch is terrible, there is no telephone or electricity and the nearest town has electricity just two hours in the evenings, so this is remote in the true sense. Access is by the Copper Canyon train that runs once a day.

The sights, sounds, smells, ambiance and events of our trip are another story. We went deep into Tarahumara Indian country on a pack trip and met a primitive lifestyle that will change little with eventual progress. We had no idea what went on in the world and ...we didn’t care. After the first night we learn not to automatically search for a light switch. We go to bed early and rise with the birds at dawn. Oil lanterns are lit in our rooms during dinner and the warm glow provides a special ambiance. We don’t need much ice in our drinks, fresh salads every day, frozen veggies or ice cream... we don’t miss them either! We have hot water--that’s a luxury. There are no TV antennas, worries of any kind, phones ringing, and there is no noise! Thick adobe walls ward off a chill at night and warm the rooms in the day. Each room also has a wood stove, should it get cold. The area is still lush and green from much needed rains. It rained on us on the trail, we could see the trees smiling! We are near the edge of the famous canyon and the brilliant colors and a sunset are gorgeous. We take a Tarahumara family home one afternoon and they, too, soak up the view--and they live there.

There is no place for hairdressers, appliances or anything fancy. Don’t plan to read in bed, catch a ball score on the radio, experience luxuries of any kind. This experience is so real it isn’t for everyone, fortunately. And Doug amp his Mexican family go out of the way to guarantee our stay is fun and safe.

Next time--a pack trip story with some interesting turns.

Continuation in the November 4, 1999 issue

My grandfather could organize a weeks pack trip into the Pecos wilderness at the drop of his ten-gallon hat. I married a man who had the same lust for life. However, I inherited my mother’s savvy on this: "Pack trips are fine, daytimes and between meals."

I have many excuses for staying home when a pack trip looms. My Mexican friend Doug and my daughter Sherry turned a deaf ear to all of them... so off we rode into remote Tarahumara Indian country last month on an overnight pack trip.

The horses and saddles are small, the trails could be considered impossible by some standards, and although we ride to a new cabin, there is no guarantee anything will work. Sherry and I have no horseback/pack gear along, there are rain clouds boiling up and our getaway is delayed. However...

I am forced to eat my words! The horses are shod with a hoof overbite to grip the rock the trail is carved out of. The small saddle gives one the proper seat to ride such steep trails because it is almost impossible to fall out of the saddle. The small pack mule carries bedrolls, the makings of a stir-fry chicken dinner, supplies for the cabin, and two rolls of barbed with--she is one tough mule! Her pack must be unloaded so she can get through a narrow gate, she is blessed with a decent temperament, unlike most mules I have known, and she doesn’t have to be led most of the time.

We climb steep hills, stop for a view and a breather, then go down steeper trails, it seems. Suddenly Doug screams "STOP!" The horses stop instantly and snort--a huge rattlesnake is coiled on a rock inches from Doug’s foot and his horses leg. Pedro, our 74 year young wrangler is off his horse and has the trail cleared before I can access the danger...

Suddenly we break into a meadow and there’s the cabin! Doug has built a small two-room cabin with a shake roof and a packed dirt floor. We unload the horses, build a fire set up camp and visit the neighbors--a Tarahumara family who live across the valley. The have a goat herd and dogs that live with the goats. Rains have made their cornfield tall and lush. This corn is the winter staple so necessary for these people to survive.

We invite them to dinner and they bring the tortillas. We introduce them to trail mix (they pick out one piece at a time to taste it), block olives and broccoli, three food items they have never seen. they are intrigued by our small flashlights and so much more...

We sleep on cots and Pedro is up at the crack of dawn to corral horses. He has them penned, or so he thought, when an opening in a stone wall provides an escape route. Oh how I wish I could have recorded the ensuing chase! The horses hide in a corn field, Sherry falls face down into a ditch bank. Doug can’t find a rope and Pedro says many choice words in Spanish.

I want to laugh but we desperately need the horses. When Doug and Pedro return with the horses, Sherry remembers she needs to head for the trees, in a hurry. I wonder how much of this fiasco our Tarahumara friends took in...