Sonora part II
After Banamichi
Somewhere along the way we passed a mining town called Arizpe; the highway totally bypassed it. We were on the way to the hot spring by Aconchi, and fortunately we did not get there by way of the town. A few miles before the town I spied a little green "agua caliente" sign, about the size of a street sign, pointing the way; the road went into a village called San Felipe de Jesus. The whole route was dry; another Anglo arrived there by way of the town and said he had to ford streams four times (in his VW bus). It's a Sonora state park with very reasonable camping rates. We stayed several days, most of it weekdays, and the place was nearly deserted until Saturday, when lots and lots of families arrived.

The main focus of activity on the weekend was the swimming pool; there were campsites upstream and we had one of those, a nice quiet place. At one point on Saturday several teenagers strolled by on their way up to a good old fashioned swimming hole farther upstream, with at least one guitar, and paused by our camp to serenade us — just because they felt like it. Later we sauntered up to the swimming hole ourselves, and found it looking just like a swimming hole ought to.

At some point we met a middle-aged lady who had brought her mother to the springs; they had short-term rented a house in San Felipe de Jesus. After we pulled up and left the park we dropped in to visit them. We talked about how taken we were with Banamichi. The lady was a teacher, and she checked the place out and then went and got a job there. This we learned by way of her daughter who had email. Being indirect, we didn't stay in touch long term.

Eventually we rolled out and went to Aconchi and Baviacora and in one of them bought a big bag of peanuts from the local "Peanut King".

The remaining memories of this trip I have just realized belong to a different trip so I'll stop now.