Deserts have always been stimulating the human survival instinct and the development of complex and mysterious cultures. We are just learning to travel, but we suffered the fascinating attraction of drought, thirst and desperation, too… it’s not a challenge against nature, but much more: it’s the attempt to approach as much as possible the silence, the memories lost in time, the nomadic soul inhibited by a sedentary style of living. In the heart of northern Mexico many ethnic groups have been adapting to extreme conditions, developing complex cultures and nomadic habits to tame the strength of nature. Peoples like Seris (Pacific Coast), Tarahumara (western Sierra Madre) and Huichol (central Highlands), still live in isolated territories and maintain almost untouched their traditions. The most symbolic expression of them is a complex of rituals, chaired by a shaman, where the consumption of psychotropic substances, such as peyote, is fundamental. From the Mayas and Aztecs to the European domination and the North American mediatic invasion, no one has been successful in influencing those cultures. The history of its peoples represents the most mysterious and interesting side of America.

Zacatecas is the most beautiful town we visited till now, something like an open-air museum full of churches, buildings and monuments. Unfortunately it’s sad to think that all that we saw it’s result of indigenous people’s sacrifice working in the mines. They enriched the old Spanish lords with gold, silver and anything else.

Here come many tourists, but after almost two months we are happy to meet travellers in order to share stories, experiences and some funny night… The market of Zacatecas is particularly big and coloured, developing along very small “calles”.

From the beaches of Mazatlan, our travel went on through the interior region of Mexico, along a very exciting trip. After passing luxuriant tropical forests, the road began to rise, following the heavy valleys of the Sierra Madre. Suddenly we came to an almost alpine landscape. A splendid picture of Mexican life, finally outside the city borders: children playing with animals in the yard and young woman washing clothes or selling delicious hand-made tamales.

We are now on the Central Altiplano and it seems a place completely different from the north-western Mexico. Durango, situated at 2000 metres of altitude, is a cool and pleasant city to be visited walking along its streets in the historic centre, around Plaza de Armas.

During the last few days we are making strange encounters… it can happen while we walk along the streets, while we seat down at a restaurant or while we drink a beer, but the strategy is unfailing: we just wait for someone approaching us! The rest is in the hands of the Mexican colorful behavior. Preferably our friends are in couple, but there are no rules of age, sex or social condition; they are always good drinkers of Tecate or Modelo (popular Mexican beers),. Everytime it sounds like we find long-term friends, who make us feel completely relaxed: questions result more and more frequent and personal, but so natural that they are never fastidious. When we see that the issue “Italy” (and relative salaries) becomes the main one, we try to put again the discussion on exotic themes. Successively, following a typical Mexican social scheme, a disturbing element arises to definitely brake the atmosphere of complicity.

Even if these experiences generally last the short time of a night, we know that only the people met in this way will colour our travel of memories and funny stories. And Mexico seems to be very, very promising in this direction.

Alamos is a picturesque town, a labyrinth of streets and Andalusian-styled houses, linking to a colonial past… as frequently happens in Latin America, their inhabitants take advantage of the beautifulness of the place (which was a mining center) to host travellers in their own apartments or, as they are called, “casas particulares”. After a short stay in Alamos, our nomadic travel started again following more or less chance stages. We went along the coast as far as Los Mochis, where we waited for the train to Copper Canyon (Barranca del Cobre), but we definitely lost it. Finally we decided to take a bus to Mazatlan, where we are still now. It is a port city with a sandy beach, nothing unforgettable. The Tropic of Cancer line is a few kilometers north from us: from now on, we’ll travel in the tropical region!

A short bus travel took us away from our preferred ghost city, through the pacific ocean. We decided to stop in the portual town of Guaymas, where we were welcome by a hot sun and the usual desertic landscape… soon we moved from our accommodation to the beach: the village of San Carlos, dominated by two twin peaks over the ocean, was our target from many days. To be honest it is not a paradise, but it seemed to us a quiet and pleasant place, where the beautiful beaches of sand and pebbles are touched by a calm, hot and emerald colored sea. The ideal place to swim just before sunset, when also entire Mexican families move from their homes to the seafront. Here the national sport seems to have a swim wearing jeans and t-shirt, obviously with a cold beer (the unfailing Tecate) within easy reach.

It was nothing special, but Hermosillo has become the place where we spent the longest time, till now. A quite prison where we alternated happy, boring and sad moments, in a typically Latin American mix. We met a lot of local people, no tourists and we lowered ourselves in this new Mexican life… we are definitely ready to become nomads, once more. We will smile thinking about the 50 degrees of the first days and about the floods of the last ones. In the meantime, the super-salted “carne asada”, the tasteful juices of our friends (“La Resaca” restaurant, ask to local people about it) and the totally unreliable information we received in the street. We say goodbye to the cacti, we need green forests to breath again.

Mission completed! As the local newspaper says, we have been successful in bringing the water in the desert, too: “¡Tormenton! Una lluvia extraordinaria de setenta milimetros en la capital Hermosillo. Desde hace cuatro años no caia una precipitacion tan fuerte”. Coming the clouds from New Mexico, as we did, they probably followed us, we should resign ourselves… now it is still raining and many people thank us on the street. As the last two weeks, we are still in the Northern Mexico, waiting for news and collecting information before leaving through the south, in a few days.