There I was, high on the slope of yet another canada, being led like an infant uphill. Our mule guide, Chente ( whom I’ve decided to call 'el oso' because of his massive hands), was towing me. He was on his horse and had a machete in one paw, and loaded rifle attached to his saddle. My tow-rope was in his other hand. He called my macho a lazy Mexican and yanked as hard as he could as we traveled in a switchback fashion ripping past towering cardon cactus, and a few thorny biznagas.
The tricky part was the prickly brush and palo adan in my face not to mention the joy of redirecting the beast left when Chente was really pulling the rope straight above me. There was no up, only curve after curve with the stubborn animal stopped dead after each hump. Somehow it collapsed, my macho, face on the dirt and body stuck in a hole. Chente missed the cue to stop. I yelled “Que hago? Que Hago?”. Chente seemed to tell me (all in Spanish of course) to stay put. He claimed the animal only wants to stand. I was unsure, but I had no real place to go if I did get my feet out of the stirrups and my legs out from under the thick layer of leather called armas and butt off the saddle. Actually getting off didn’t appear easy. I was not stuck, but I was fatigued. There was no panic in his eyes and beyond my yelling and heart pounding all was still. The mule straightened up, Chente mumbled a few words of encouragement and we were back in motion again; trudging uphill to see the next cave with pinturas repustres in the Sierra de Guadalupe.
