Wadley

The road out of Real was great. You travel it by Willys, which looked to me like early ‘60s-era 4-wheel drive trucks. They then take you down the mountain by the rockiest, bumpiest road Petra and I have ever traveled together (although the road just out of Mengla, China, was a close second). Into the valley you could see ruins and a surprising number of waterfalls with caves behind them; I wish I had known they were there earlier and we definitely would have hiked out to them. It was a great hour long trip, spanning about 8 miles (15 km).


We finally arrived in Estacion de Catorce, and sat on the road for a couple of hours until the bus to Wadley came. We had heard about Wadley while reading up on Real de Catorce as a nearby town that was supposed to be cheap to stay in. We had been treating ourselves a bit in Real, and so decided to try and even out the coffers a bit.


In Wadley, we asked for Don Tomas, whose name we had seen on a couple of websites as the person to ask for rooms. He led us over the railroad tracks to a small complex: about six room around a dirt courtyard, plus a small kitchen with a hot plate. Each room had a bed and a light, but no plugs (so no computer). It was cheap, at only 40 pesos a night; we actually talked to several other travelers while we were there that said it is known for being the cheapest place to stay in Mexico.


One of the reasons people come to Wadley is to pick and take peyote. Almost all of the backpackers we met there had come “to walk in the desert,” and there were also a number of people from Mexico City who had come up for the holiday. Most of them headed out to a nearby ranch to camp out for a night and commune. But we didn’t have a tent and only one sleeping bag between us, and that sounded like it would just be cold.


But there was nothing else to do!!! It was absolutely the most boring place I have ever been! No plug, which meant our usual entertainment was gone. We have a couple of books, but they’re all pretty heavy reading and we weren’t up for much of them. We’ve been to other places that weren’t particularly exciting, and I spent some time trying to figure out what made Wadley more trying. What I came up with is that there was no food. There were little bodegas all around that had cokes and chips, but for actual food there was one little taco stand, whose tacos weren’t very good and which was only open in the evening. So during the day, there wasn’t even someplace to sit and have a cup of coffee and maybe meet a few people. Nor were the little stores very well stocked with non-snack food, so we couldn’t even cook much even though we had the luxury of a kitchen.


So we’d get up in the morning and walk in the desert. Then we’d come back and get a drink from one of the shops and sit on the corner to drink it. After that, it was time for high excitement as we decided to sit on the corner across the street for a change of view. Then a wander down the block to look at the fluffy white baby sheep. Check the watch, and…it’s like 11am, by which time it’s getting to hot and bright to walk in the desert anymore, and we had just seen the entire set of highlights for the town. Makes for a /long/ day, and after just a couple of days Petra and I were literally climbing the walls trying to figure out what to do.


And it was dusty. Our dirt courtyard was dusty; the roads were dusty; the desert was dusty; our room was dusty; and we were dusty after having sat in our courtyard, on the road, in the desert and in our room. We tried to unpack as little as possible and wear the same clothes in the hopes of not getting everything covered in dirt. I think we’re also going to pay up for an actual washing machine, as well, instead of washing our clothes by hand like I usually do.


Still, the desert was beautiful. This is the first North American desert Petra has seen (she’s been to the Sahara and to Australia), and she was having a hard time thinking of it as a desert because of how much vegetation there was: you’d look out, and it seemed just carpeted with low shrubs broken up by occasional bigger cacti or trees. At night you could see the stars really well, and there was the absolute brightest full moon I have ever seen: one night it seemed to light up an entire half of the sky with its glow. Pretty amazing.


We had decided to try and couchsurf (a great resource for any traveler) over to San Luis Potosi, which apparently has a big Easter celebration. We had seen a pamphlet in Real which had pictures of the Procession Silencio, where hundreds of people march by silently every year, wearing what I can only describe as purple Ku Klux Klan robes. I was chatting to another American when I first saw the pamphlet, and we both blinked and asked the receptionist about it; obviously the robes don’t have the same symbolism here, and the parade is part of the Easter celebrations. But things didn’t quite work out and we were afraid the hotels there would be full and/or expensive, so we have retreated back to Matehuala and are planning to stay here over the weekend.