Martha’s contacts through the community have worked in consort to create an ideal location, wonderful landowners along with volunteers and funding. This year was the wettest in over 10 years and contributed to the filling of two reservoirs, several running streams and the creation of a patch of goo that could stop a Panzer tank.
The first on the project list is a trail system that will circuitously traverses the landscape while taking advantage of the abundant natural assets. The identification of flora and fauna along with various feeding areas for, birds, deer and general ground critters will be along all routes. The layout of the trails will probably cover 4 miles or so and have interlocking shortcuts along with an elevation change potential of about 300 vertical feet. This will allow for a number of different levels of experience depending on the fortitude of the hopefully willing participants.
The first step in this process, is finding colored flagging tape and then a chain saw that will run and has an outside chance of possessing a usable chain. The ground is rolling with dense foliage in all directions and with incredibly tenacious vines growing at an easily observable rate. Bromeliads seem to be sprouting from everywhere and many different flowers bloom throughout the wet season. The butterflies are profuse and it seems that every vine and shrub has some type of flower. The upper reservoir has 12 to 15 whistling ducks; most of them are this years hatchlings.
The Ebony trees are 8 inches to 16 inches in diameter and Martha showed me Fichus almost 5 feet across. The canopy never reaches more than 20 to 45 feet in height even in the areas of old growth. The deciduous vegetation drops it’s leaves in December and stays brown and dead looking until the rainy season. Just when the lawns of the US are burning under a July sun, the thunderstorms begin in the mountains and work their way through the foothills to the beaches. This year the rains seemed to come in three varieties, heavy, torrential and hurricane.
There is an elevated palapa at the top of the highpoint of the property that will become one of the bird watching areas as well as a great viewpoint. As soon as I can find that chainsaw, I can cut my way to it and see if it could possibility be made to hold a group of nervous tourists. I am truly grateful that I am not attempting this type of undertaking in California; the shaky palapa alone would no doubt represent major jail time.
On the first walk around, Martha pointed out a great Tarantula nest with an orange and black-legged spider of impressive size. The core of the preserve has a casita and a large aviary next to a reservoir of about 1 acre in size. There is a hand dug well, 29 feet deep and full to the top with light brown water. In the near future a solar water pump, a12-volt pressure pump and a couple of elevated holding tanks will supply needed water for plants and animals.
After about an hour of wandering and driving around, Martha said, ”lets look at the other reservoir.” At this point I was lulled into a state most easily described as a casual jungle cruising. With a ¾ ton Dodge diesel 4x4 the terrain seemed quite tame so far; several water crossings, mud holes and eroded sections of road, no problem. As I descended down what was left of the road into the area of the second reservoir, I stopped above a creek bed, that was professed to be the actual road, and locked in the 4-wheel drive. If this were the first 4-wheel drive truck I have ever owned, or the first water crossing I had ever attempted, or the first time off the pavement, I could claim total and complete incompetence. However in retrospect, I can only claim total and complete stupidity; the ground looked good and the water was only a couple of inches deep……what the hell?
I have been stuck in snow, sand, mud, loose rock and soft clay a few times over the years, but nothing had prepared me for this hole of death. Normally when you feel the wheels slip and the vehicle start to drop, you “A” stop immediately, get out and assess your chances or “B” hammer the throttle and try to cross the soft spot before it sucks you down. Given the steep angle of decent and the flat creek/road at the bottom, the throttle option was no good. I had passed on to a section of the ground that had underground water coming up through the soil and the drop was instant, right to the frame. Within about 2 seconds, I knew that my bacon had just been smoked.
The good news was: Martha had her ever-present cell phone and knew everybody within 20 miles and it wasn’t quite dark yet. After climbing to a higher point to make the distress call, Martha came back with a smile and announced “ Ramon is on his way.”
Ramon, his brother, his wife and 8-year-old son and arrived with a 70’s vintage 1-ton dodge dually complete with chain and shovels. The first attempt was to simply attach the chain between the two trucks and give it a tug. It was immediately apparent that this friendly tug would have no sooner moved a multistoried building than my mired truck. It was at this point the shovels came out and in the long shadows of early evening; we began to scoop the slop. 30 minutes of shoveling the unrelenting goop was also a loosing proposition; the truck was not going anywhere soon. After Ramon and Martha conferred for several minutes, it was decided that the tractor at the dairy farm would be the next best choice. The sun had been down long enough that the tractor extraction would have to be done the following morning.
The thunderheads had been building all afternoon and the cloud-to-cloud lightning was dancing over the foothills as we all packed into Ramon’s truck for the ride back into town. A couple of miles down the road we pulled into a small dairy farm and Martha made the pitch for the tractor, remember she’s real good at this; done deal, no problem. We agreed to be back at 9:00 AM the next day for phase two, jumped back in the truck and trundled down the last of the dirt road and out to the north end of Mazatlan. We all ended up at a great street side taco stand for dinner, all of us wearing, some with more grace than others, and varying amounts of, the Mazatlan mud we had meet with full force. Of course Martha, very close to home, returned refreshed and ready for the next adventure. I suddenly felt like a tired, muddy braccero, enjoying carne asada tacos with my new found friends and rescuers.
The next morning, I met Martha at her place at 8:40 ready to implement the next extraction attempt. Myself, Snickers the Wonder Dog and Martha set out for the Rancho with high hopes for immediate success. At the dairy farm, the tractor was ready to go and it certainly looked big enough. However I questioned the fact this particular tractor, did not have 4-wheel drive. The owner was very confident in the ability of his equipment to make short work of the task; great, no more digging.
The real tough part of this process was directly related to the steep angle of the road and the fact that the entire undercarriage, axels, frame and rocker panels were sitting on fairly hard soil only the wheels were in severe slop. The only way to get it out was to literally drag a 7500-pound truck, on the frame, up a steep, slightly rocky, clay hill.
Once again Ramon drove us to the site of the slowing sinking truck. Of course the first tactic was to hook up the chain and give it a shot, spirits were up, this just had to work. The first pull brought the truck about 6 feet back up the hill before the tractor bogged down. Since the first 6 feet up also put the vehicle about a foot further off to the left side of what remained of the road, the left front wheel took a deep dive. The tractor repositioned and gave it another go that managed to gain another 5 feet, break the chain and sink the entire front axel assembly of the truck. The mud was above the front bumper and oozing into the grill on to the radiator. At this point, with a little digging the rear receiver hitch was high enough to place a large floor jack under the hitch. Ramon jacked the rear end up as high as possible and filled the muddy holes under the wheels with large sticks and rocks. The truck was lowered and the next round of mud bog tractor pull, Mexican style, was under way.
After an hour of digging and pulling, the truck looked to be deeper in than when we started. After another animated discussion, it was decided it was time for the bigger, four wheel drive tractor and heaver chain than the 7/16” chain we had broken earlier.
At this point, my 3 liters of water were almost gone and I thought it could be a considerable time before we, hopefully, accomplished our task. At the bottom of the road/creek and slightly to the right, there was a large hand dug well filled with rather clear water. Since, over the last 35 years or so, I have never had a bad water experience in Mexico and I was also very thirsty, I asked Ramón if the water was aqua dulce, he immediately replied, si, no probleama. Given the confidence he radiated, without hesitation, I handed him my large and very empty, water bottle. I think he initially hesitated, not wanting to possibly dose this poor gringo with months of intestinal agony. He solved this momentary dilemma by producing a well-used handkerchief and proceeded to wash it very thoroughly in the 2 inches of water in the creek/road. I held the large empty bottle, he poked the handkerchief into the neck and began the filling process. Knowing that most cysts and cytoplasm’s are 5 to 7 microns or so, I knew I could be over the edge on this one, but what the hell, going native gets easer every day. I thanked him profusely, downed a third of the bottle and then realized that it tasted like decent spring water; a pleasant surprise indeed.
By this time the really big tractor had arrived and we were all back to digging and pulling and pulling and digging. On the forth attempt the frame finally broke it’s death grip on the mud and the truck was pulled up and out of the bottomless hole of goo. Just to make sure, the tractor driver took me to the very top of the hill and on to flat ground, he didn’t want the pour fool that owned the truck in any more trouble. Every one was once again wearing quantities of mud, but I think Martha was the only one that seemed to wear it well.
Since Ramon’s shovel looked like it was past its last legs, I gladly gave him the almost new one I had just barrowed from a friend; immediate needs out weighed future consequences. I also empted my wallet for the stalwart tractor owner and dug out some more for Ramon. I was freed, Ramon had a new shovel and some pesos, and the dairy farmer made more than he could have on a slow Sunday morning; life was good again for all.
For the day and a half that I was hopelessly and helplessly mired in the goo at the Rancho, I also realized I had as easily become just as mired in the wonderful community I discovered myself within; Mazatlan had just become home.
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