In the north, highways and bus journeys lengthen inconsolably. Under these searing white hot horizons, everything is tempered by patience. Harsh, uncompromising, unrelenting patience. Finally the colonial city of Durango marks a break in my journey. I arrive just before midnight, having travelled 19 hours from the city of Morelia in Michoacán.
The city retains an unmistakeable Wild West ambience with its wide roads, low buildings and baroque Cathedral the colour of desert sand. Cowboys saunter along the pavements in jeans and Texan hats, silver belt buckles gleaming in the sun.
Durango is so authentic that its surrounding deserts have served as the backdrop for hundreds of Hollywood westerns – ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and ‘The Wild Bunch’ included. A dusty old museum commemorates Durango’s golden age with cardboard cut-outs of John Wayne and a plethora of antique film equipment.
Beyond this, a handful of crumbling film sets collapse under the advance of time and encroaching vegetation, whilst an obscure theme park lays on cheesy cowboy shows replete with gun-slinging villains and bawdy house strumpets.
I spend a day in the city, checking the hotels and restaurants, making the rounds, collecting brochures and gathering facts. The next day I rise early, type up my notes and take breakfast in a warm cafeteria rich with coffee aromas. It’s time strike north to Parral.
But poor timing leaves me stranded at Durango’s bus station for some four hours. Not only are bus journeys longer here, they are less frequent too.
Finally, at 5pm, I board the bus. It stinks of stale urine and someone has vomited all over the onboard toilet. We rattle out of town and the air-conditioning pipes the stinking toilet air into the main cabin, wave after wave of gagging nastiness.
Such is the glamorous life of the travel writer.
