urique

2 hr bus ride from los angeles to san diego
20 hrs in bus from tijuana to los mochis
13 hrs in train through the copper canyon to a train stop called Bahuichivo (bah-we-chee-vo)
3 hrs down a rocky terrain ...

And we arrived in a small mountain town called urique. The three hour ride down the mountain is definitely worth noting. It was a crazy ride where we were constantly being thrown about and even when you think there is not enough room to fit the small bus that we were on down the path, there would be another truck passing you to the left. All the cars have radios and whenever they are calling a location they say the name three times really fast, it was really funny after awhile. And you should try saying urique or bahuichivo three times fast, it is quite a skill. Anyway, urique was just lovely. All of the people were so happy and so nice to us, which is a lot more than we can say for los mochis. No one understood a word of spanish that we spoke in Los Mochis and they did not seem too thrilled to try. I was in urique for my birthday on the 22nd. We stayed at a place called entre amigos. A guy named Keith owns it. He is from Oregon and he is a really cool guy. He is married to a brilliant woman from mexico named Violeta who has a PHD in something. I read one of her packets that was to help teach vocab to 2nd year spanish students in college. They have a garden with three types of lettuce including romaine, garlic, green onions, plus grapefruit and lemon trees. It was really fun utilizing those ingredients in the community kitchen. On my birthday, Kristle made me a cake with icing from hot chocolate mix. Then a beekeeper from north carolina played us happy birthday on the fiddle. We went on a couple hikes around the town. We stayed in urique for three nights and it was definitely time to leave by the time we left. I would love to go back there to hike some more or spend more time with the locals.