Mexico, Tenancingo Degollado, : El Fuerte III

       The following day we took a tour on El Rio Fuerte. The Rio Fuerte drains the western slope of the Sierra Tarahumara. Zorro, or Miguel, was our guide once again. We boarded a rubber raft upstream a bit on the river, one of the wider rivers I have seen in Mexico. It actually qualifies as a river, and this was the dry season so the river was way down.. It's emerald green, over ten feet deep in places and filled with bass. I wished I had brought my pole. The river is controlled somewhat by a dam upstream but during the rainy season it broaches its banks and floods great distances inland. The town of El Fuerte, however is on an escarpment and does not receive these seasonal inundations. The river teems with a variety of birds. Eagles, comorants, and herons Eagles seemed to be perched on high dead trees everywhere.
     We floated lazily downstream in a strong current and docked the boat. In front of us was a fenced path wide enough for a car. This strip of land was lent to the public by a landowner to have access to the Mayo petroglyphs. As we walked along this promenade of midget spiney bushes and dryish tangled vines this semi desert came more alive. I have walked in deserts before in California, Arizona, and Utah but these places were so dry the cactus were bribing the dogs. Viewed from a distance one would think the desert was life's mendicant,, alive but in a very meagre way,, yet look closer,, life is so adaptable and proliferates. There were deer and wild boar tracks and fruits dangling from the trees that I have never seen or heard of and this was the dry season. There were curcurbita (wild squash), Guamuchil, Bromelia pinguin (Aguama), pithayo, and much more. Perhaps it was just being there ambling about inside this semi arid environment which made it a microscopic experience.

El Rio Fuerte from the actual fort in El Fuerte

The Rio Fuerte trailing off towards its destination now,, irrigation.

Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

Garceta Grande or Great White Egret

Comorants

An Eagle

Strange fruits

Wild squash

Miguel stopped to show us a conical hole in the sandy soil. He called it an Ormiga Leon (lion ant). I later found out it is not an ant at all but the larva of another type of insect.It is more commonly known in the USA as a doodlebug. Miguel crouched and tossed an ant into the cone. Immediately there was a reaction,, the flicking of loose dirt, which seemed to weaken the walls of the cone as the prey desperately tried to escape.The mark kept falling towards the hole in the center as the floor beneath it was repeatedly caved in. It's as if the victim drowns in sand, then pulled down into the cone where the Lion Ant sucks him dry. All the while the killer larva stays hidden.

https://youtu.be/KufhmIRE6hI Great Youtube link to watch the entire process

The ready and hungry larva of a Lion Ant. It resembles something the army might want to develop into a weapon.

The delicate adult of a lion ant which feeds on nectar

Conical "waiting trap" of the Ormiga Leon (Lion Ant) on El Rio Fuerte. The larva waits hidden beneath the air hole for an insect to enter its home made killing wheel then with viciousness dispatches its prey.

Miguel told us that the path on which we were walking is under two feet of water during the rainy season all the way to the base of the first petroglyphs which protude from the skirt of a larger rocky projection called the Cerro de la Mascara (Mountain Mask). The worn petroglyphs were left by the indigenous Maya. They are believed to be between 800 and 2500 years old. That seems to me a poor estimate, but these petroglyphs like others in Sinaloa have not been well evaluated. Some archaeologists have estimated that there may over 200 sites like this in the state.

The guard of this mountain, Don Juan Sánchez, was also the man who fought for the entrance corridor from the river. He died in 2013. Don Juan did not work for INAH, the archaeological office of the Mexican Government. He was a private citizen who lived on the cerrito with his wife. Everyone who knew him claimed he was a staunch defender of the site, a great host, and guide, and tended to the those who visited within his own house. I just love people who love something.

We walked until we came to an outcrop of rocks, which at first glance seemed just that. But they are covered with incisions depicting anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images. This outcropping is covered with people, animals,, the sun perhaps, dates??? who knows. A culture doesn't incise rock in a permanent way unless they possess a certain level of economic development. These indigenous people secured their moment in time using the age old canvas,,, stone. Yet what was the significance of the moment? Was this a religious site or something else? I felt witness to an extinct organism. How could anyone speak for the mute images at this point. How could anyone recreate their motives? Were they spiritual? Was it a narrative or just a compilation of individual images. Perhaps it was only graffitti. After all in this sandy desert how many good rock canvasses are offered, yet even graffitti is connected to societal motivations even if it has nothing to do with the spiritual.

Below petrograbadas:

Bridge over El Rio Fuerte near the end of our flotation

We entered a small bay, docked, and all at once the river romance ended. Floating in a rubber pillow, rejuvenated me. Silly isn't it. I was always more used to kayaking and canoeing on my in Maine on its rivers and sinuous tributaries, loving the water, impenetrable bushes, and sudden bursts of wildlife. It was Tom Sawyeresque if so brief but rich. I just yet don't know how to assimilate the flowing past-present of a river here and the more fixed past into one familiar image. Perhaps Mexico's human history is just too ancient for me to contemplate. A river is a vein that pulses and twists but I am forever unable to encounter its heart hindered by my epoch. I am left to read between the gliphs.

We returned to the pueblow, El Fuerte.Below are some other photos of him: