Visiting Nombre De Dios and Durango Mexico
On the way to Durango from Mazatlán via the Baluarte Bridge
People born in Mazatlán refer to themselves proudly as patas saladas translated “salty feet.” But even the saltiest of natives doesn’t mind a break from the inevitable blanket of humidity that a Mexican coastal town wraps around you in August. Always ready for an adventure, my Mexican friend Estella suggested we take a bus to the city of Durango, the capital of the state of Durango about three hours away. She had a friend there willing to show us around.
Durango is not as well-traveled a destination for American travelers, however for years I had been wanting to make the trip in order to see the much-ballyhooed Baluarte Bridge on the Highway 40D on the way. The Baluarte Bridge is the third-highest cable-stayed bridge in the world, and the highest bridge in the Americas. It transformed Mexican national tourism in Mazatlán by cutting the time by at least three hours from that part of Mexico. The previous road, I understand, was a real hair-raiser.
I was also curious about the terrain between Mazatlán and Durango. The landscape around Durango has been the location for many American movies, particularly movies about the Old West. It has its own Walk of Fame with stars and statues that include many well-known American actors such as Kirk Douglas and Paul Newman from their movies Romancing the Stone and Fat Man and Little Boy.
Hostel de Monja in Durango - a prime location
On our first night in Durango, I was introduced to Alicia and her long-time travel companion Anna. Alicia is a retired attorney, her friend a retired medical administrator. Both are barely 50 years old - a enviable testament to Mexico’s decent pension system. That they both wore braces, extremely common in older as well as young adults in Mexico, made them look that much younger.
Unsure they were ready for my uneven Spanish, as the four of us munched on salads I read them an article written in Spanish from the Matador Network titled “25 Lies Every Person from Puebla Had Told at Least Once.” I had discovered the article while writing a blog about Puebla, Mexico. I wondered out loud to them. Did Durango had any “lies” they knew of? Were there any lies every person from Durango had told at least once? They quietly considered my question.
Durango’s City Square
Durango has the feel you expect in a state capital in Mexico, with their typical larger town centers. Tall baroque buildings line the city center mall. The city is peaceful. Accustomed to the rowdy beach town I live in, I found myself walking disconcertedly deserted downtown streets with my friends in search of food at 10:00 at night (when its neighbor Mazatlán is just kicking in). Our host assured me that a pizzaria was only two short blocks away (the First Lie of Durango).
Durango’s Culture of the Scorpion
The next day, sunny and dry, as we walked along the wide promenade near downtown with the usual Mexican array of vendors, restaurants and coffee shops, I noticed that the emblem of the scorpion, or actual scorpions themselves, displayed on souvenirs and marques. When I asked a restaurant owner about them, he told me that the locals ate them in tacos (the Second Lie of Durango, we noted.) Scorpions, I’d come to learn are emblematic to Durango culture, a local scourge now blunted by increasingly effective vaccines (and all those people capturing them to stick on souvenirs).
Saltillo - Gorditas and Mezcal for Breakfast
The highlight of our trip was a trip to one of Mexico’s 115 Pueblos Magicos, Saltillo. The pueblo is on the way to Nombre de Dios, a natural wonder with three 64,000 foot waterfalls and lush canyon views.
Reminiscent of how my friends and I in Denver might stop at Whistle Stop in Georgetown, Colorado for breakfast on the way to Copper Mountain in the Rockies, Anna, our driver for the day, took us to Doña Aleja, a diner well-known for its gorditas, a kind of stuffed tortilla originating from the style of food workers took out to the fields. Alicia expertly chose fillings for what appeared to be about a hundred of them and we sat down to feast. Unlike at the Whistle Stop, we paired them with small tumblers of the famous local mezcal.
Mezcal gets a bad rap in the U.S. as being “bad tequila.” Mezcal, I have come to learn, can be very smooth. I have experienced it served at elegant gallery openings and special events. The mezcal sold in the Saltillo marketplace has the distinction of domination of origination, which designates the product as originating from that particular area, with “qualities and characteristics due exclusively to the geographical environment.”
Nombre de Dios
Once in the enchanted forest of Nombre de Dios, after stepping around trees appropriate to a Grimm’s fairy tale with roots big enough to hide behind, we lounged. Estella expounded upon how to understand Borges, we needed to know how to read Borges and the art of the metaphor! I volleyed her astute literary analysis with incorrect verb conjugations and the misuse of feminine and masculine noun articles. Our two smiling hosts looked on, unfortunately only encouraging us. The decided hour we’d meticulously planned for dinner back in Durango came and went without anyone even remarking upon its passing.
The day had still been quite warm. After lounging on tree roots all afternoon, upon our return to the city I needed to freshen up before an early dinner (or late lunch, I never know which I’m having in Mexico). Our hosts patiently waited in the lobby of our hotel, The Hostel de Monja, which is directly across from the Cathedral Basilica of Durango, a prime location in the city.
Once in the nicely appointed room with a window facing an inner courtyard, Estella bundled up in a blanket, confused as I turned the air conditioner to 50 degrees and called room service to request a standing fan to blow this air directly on me that night. At that moment, I decided I would never stay in another hotel in Durango. Estelle decided never to share another room with an American.
After a long, satisfying dinner and another walk, our two hosts kissed us goodbye outside the door of the hotel with the standard Mexican effusive show of affection that I adore. Estella and I immediately snuck back out in search of a hostess gift for Alicia who had put us up the night before. As we came out of a store, Alicia was sitting on a bench right in front of me, across the street, waving merrilly. I turned around to Estella behind me, my eyes as big as coffee saucers. “Que hacemos ahora? I mouthed (“What we do now?” My Spanish suffers under stress.)
A bus driver’s view of the famous bridge. A round-trip ticket from Mazatlán to Durango costs about $40 U.S.
It must have been the expression on my face... or my Spanish. Estella burst out laughing and dove back through the door of the store we’d just left, leaving me on the sidewalk to figure out what the hell was going on. Ha-ha!, I lied (the Third Lie of Durango), we were just trying to find a restroom (the ones at our 4-star hotel weren’t nice enough). Alicia explained she hadn’t driven in to meet us earlier. She had taken a bus. Now she was waiting for her daughter to go home together and busted us sneaking out after our good nights.
Mexico’s Luxury Buses
The next morning, after a complementary “American” breakfast at the hotel of omelettes, fresh fruit and tortillas and coffee, it was back to the bus station for the return trip.
The bus to Durango had been discouragingly different from other Mexican buses I’d been on. Unlike those, where I always tried to sit behind the driver in order to see the view ahead, this bus had a wall between driver and passengers, like a plane does.
When Estella mentioned to the driver that we didn’t even see the bridge on the way to Durango given the side-only view, he invited us into the driver’s cabin to see the road ahead. There was even a little seat on the passenger’s side we could both fit on (This kind of thing always seems to happen when I’m with Estella. She’s a magnet for possibilities).
Once we’d taken in the amazing views of the bridge and landscape from that fantastic perspective, we returned to our seats for the remainder of the trip. This time I noted the good sized television screens mounted on the wall I’d once hated in front of us. Settling in with the lunch the bus provided, we did a count to coordinate both screens to the same moment in the same movie and watched Train Wreck (La chica es un desastre) together from the two screens.
Estella watched with a furrowed brow as I tried (unsuccessfully) to explain who Bill Hader, Colin Quinn and LeBron James (the stars of the movie) were, and the whole concept of Saturday Night Live.
Once we arrived back in Mazatlán, it was still early enough for me to catch the sunset over the ocean, a view I resent missing even for a day. It was good to be home.
Related links:
Mexico's luxury bus lines have their own separate terminals. The line you would want to use in Sinaloa (the state in which Mazatlán is located), is Autotransportes Unidos de Sinaloa.
There are over a hundred Pueblo Magicos in Mexico, perfect places for day and week-end trips. - Ventanas Mexico
Up next: America’s retirement concerns explained by bees [blog]
About the author:
Kerry Baker is the author of If Only I Had a Place is a guide to renting in Mexico in the long-term, what you need to know about both the opportunities and pitfalls. Most recently, she released, The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of lIfe through part-time life in Mexico.” The Mexico Solution will give you step by step guide to moving to Mexico that won’t leave you numb like the others.
Her most recent work, The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico, is a cookbook collaboration with Mexican food blogger Fabiola Licona will enable you to shop, cook and eat healthy in Mexico.