We left Mazatlan yesterday for El Palmito, 2 hours east along the Espina del Diablo (Spine of the Devil) in the Sierra Madre. This is rugged territory.
A piece of the new road through the Sierra’s. This is really rugged territory.
A new cuota road has been built which is less twisty and a bit wider (still two lane) that generally follows the same path between Mazatlan and Durango. In the portion we drove, maybe 40 miles, before getting onto the libre (free) road, we went through 18 tunnels and over quite a few big bridges. The new road removes the tight curves of the Espina, but is still a pretty amazing road.
One of the bridges heading into a tunnel. Note the 18-wheeler to the right.
Our goal was Ejido Chara Pinta, a primitive eco facility put together by a few families on their collective land where Don Santos takes you into the mountains in search of the Chara Pinta, or Tufted Jay. The Chara Pinta is found only in this area of the Sierra Madre, so if you want to see them, you have to come to this general area. There are not many roads through the Sierra and most of them are dirt and not good dirt, and often through areas that may or may not be “open” to folks (this is Sinaloa). Jim and I are not bird life list chasers, but this sounded like fun, the mountains are spectacular and the Chara Pinta is a really pretty bird.
Jim enjoying our Valentines Day dinner.
Our little 2-story cabina was clean and tidy. Fresh mountain water, hot shower, two plastic chairs, bed and one light in each room. There are no “hotel” facilities such as a restaurant. It is about 8 miles from El Palmito on a somewhat rough mountain dirt road. Luckily, we had wine, nuts, crackers and left over pizza from the previous night. Dinner!
Don Santos shows a picture of the Chara Pinta to a local. Who knows where the guy was headed, but deep into the Sierra.
We took a short bird walk on Sunday and turned in fairly early after our gourmet Valentines Day dinner. We met at 6:30 this morning to be up with the birds. This is standard bird watching procedure (which is why I am not a very serious bird watcher, morning person I am not!). Up this abandoned logging road, down this small track, up another track, through the brush, up another road,…. you get the picture. 5 hours, yes 5 hours of this. We saw some gorgeous scenery, very nice birds. a few we had not seen before, but no Chara Pinta. Not even a call of one. We were ready to give up, but Don Santos really did not want us to go away without seeing one. Finally…., the very last bird we saw, two Chara Pintas! No, I don’t have a pic as they did not hang around long enough for that which is unusual. But we did see them clearly which was cool!
A view stop on our 5 hours quest.