Misc data and adventures of a Tayopa treasure hunter

Nov 8, 2004
14,582
11,944
Alamos,Sonora,Mexico
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
good morning. back and since I am extremely limited at this point in revealing any more
new data on the Tayopa project itself, I thought "why not talk of individual adventures of
the Tayopa seekers or of Treasure hunters in general.

So feel free to post, in fact please do so.

I will start with an em from one of my friends . He describes what
a treasure hunter feels with every find, just substitute the proper word in the appropiate place.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not a small number of people have asked me why I liked enforcement work.

Many years ago, by local standards of the xxx Personnel, a station T-shirt was designed.

The inscription superimposed on the seal is a quote from Hemingway and states this:

"There is no hunting like the hunting of man,
and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it,
never cared for anything else thereafter."

Certainly not Shelley or Keats much less Browning or Service, but there is a philosophical point to be made.

***************
My answer -->

XXX: you posted -->


"There is no hunting like the hunting of man,
and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it,
never cared for anything else thereafter."

That is soo true, this is why I drifted to exploration and Lost mines in the then semi hostile areas. It ruined me for conventional life. In many ways it was not fair to my family.

It has been said " After individual armed conflict, one never is the same, one lives so intently during that brief moment, that for some it is like a drug, you will be living and looking for another hit forever after.

Not too many understand what you have put so nicely in print. ©@

Don Jose de La Mancha
 

Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp said:
allo , only if YOU do also', as well as the others.

Don Jose de La Mancha
But , Senior ,
Your bag of stories is so large and ours , humbly , so small .
Jim
 

Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp said:
allo , only if YOU do also', as well as the others.

Don Jose de La Mancha

I cannot; have never been to TAYOPA country, so the ball is in your court! :read2: :thumbsup:

PS - that Mule sweat may have been a protection against fleas!
 

HEY quit passing the buck amigo! :tongue3:

More of YOUR adventures and experiences are what we want to read, so now you have started the ball rolling,....hmmm? :read2: :thumbsup:

;D

:coffee2: :coffee: :coffee2:
 

Geeze my friends, do you actually think that I can post one true story a day for a year 'all alone' ? HALP!! ORO, Crow, Truckin, Rockhound, and the others. This would wipe out my base for the Book.

Don Jose de La Mancha
 

Don Jose de la Mancha wrote
Geeze my friends, do you actually think that I can post one true story a day for a year 'all alone' ? HALP!! ORO, Crow, Truckin, Rockhound, and the others. This would wipe out my base for the Book.

Don Jose de La Mancha

I do not believe that you will run out of material any time soon amigo, and even the incidents which you have already shared, likely have far more details which you can add when you compose the book. I do hope that you are working on it still? Not going to start throwing stones or use the ox-goad or bullwhip (verbally) to try to 'drive' you forward, for I am an expert procrastinator myself.

I don't have any stories that can match your experiences, and have never been to TAYOPA country (yet) so really it is not quite in keeping with your topic, but I can give an example that may prove entertaining. This is a more recent incident (last winter) and a good example of why I prefer camping away from roads in general.

Beth and I, with our pack of super-friendly dogs, were heading for home from AZ and decided to spend a little time poking around in the Pyramid mountains in NM. There are a few old silver mines there, mostly old copper mines of course and the silver mines are largely played out but once in a while you can find a nice piece of "specimen" ore and we do not have many silver ore specimens. Anyway as it is largely all accessible by decent roads or a 4WD, we drove out to the area not far from the aforementioned old silver mines, set up camp, had some trouble finding firewood for the evening meal (and heat) but thankfully the winds died down and other than being cold, it was quite pleasant. Off in the distance you could see the twinkling lights of distant ranches or rural homes, and the occasional lights of a vehicle heading down the highways. For a car-camp spot, other than the complete lack of water and scarce firewood, it was quite nice.

I had dug out my laptop PC and was looking up the info on the local mines, and the digital forms of the topo maps for the next day (wanted to hike in and check out a prospect that never did develop into a mine) and the dogs suddenly alerted that they heard something. A moment later we spotted headlights winding their way up the mountain. Not exactly alarming, as it is accessible by vehicle this could be anything, but it does not pay to be less than vigilant and especially so, the closer one gets to the borders. So we kept watch, as the vehicle (some kind of SUV, too dark to make out what exactly) wound its way up the mountain and ended up a few hundred yards off to the SE of our camp.

As it was not very windy, we could hear the occupants as they piled out of their SUV it was clear that they were young partiers, sounding already well into the bottle (or whatever mind-altering substance they were using) as they stumbled and giggled. Their mission involved some shooting, followed by a decision to burn some large rubbish. Apparently it is a rite of passage to then seize the burning large piece of rubbish, and flail it about while dancing. Unfortunately, there was a puff of wind just as the reveler was in the middle of the fire-dance, and set some of the nearby brush on fire. Still holding his fire-offering, he and his companions set to work to stomp out the resulting brushfire. As the fire got extinguished, unfortunate for the fire-worshipper, he failed to notice that his offering torch had burned down a bit too close to his own clothing and now set his own clothes on fire. :blob8: :o :o :o

His fire-dance now took on quite a comical appearance, and his being inebriated did not apparently seem to help his situation much; his companions decided that retreat was the better part of valour and piled back into the vehicle, while the fire-worshipper went through gymnastics and an impromptu strip-tease. I probably should have run to the rescue at some point in this but we were both seized with uncontrollable fits of laughter, which must be due to having remembered something funny - it would be impolite to say we were laughing at his discomfiture.

Fortunately for our late night revelers, Mr Fire was able to end his dance successfully, and we could hear the clear exclamations of "I'm all right" to his compatriots seeking safety inside the vehicle. This brief error however seems to have ended the revelry, and they decided to head back down out of the mountains. Thinking our free entertainment was done for the evening, I poured Beth and myself a fresh cup of sock-coffee and went back to checking on the records of the old (local) mines, while keeping one eye on the SUV as it worked its way back down.

As they got about half way down the mountain, they seem to have changed their minds and decided to turn around in the road. The road is not too wide at that particular point, so I expected to see the SUV make a couple of back-ups in the 'broken-K' method of turning about. Not our revelers - they made a sudden and hard swing backwards, right down over a steep embankment. This left the headlights shining out to our alien space neighbors in the sky, and Beth insisted that someone must go see if they are alright so I started down the hill to be of assistance if needed. Before I reached their upended vehicle, all five of the party was out of the vehicle and unharmed, and un-willing to have any assistance. So I headed back, but decided to keep an eye on them. They spent the next several hours trying to physically lift the SUV and get it back onto the roadway, without success. One of the party had a cell phone (and must have used it) and to make a long story even longer, by daylight had managed to get a tow truck to extract their stranded vehicle. All of which turned out harmless, but in their extraction they left behind several cases of empty beer cans strewn over the ground.

I hope this was entertaining, if un-related to our topic matter, and I look forward to reading the stories from you all. :read2: :thumbsup:
Oroblanco

:coffee2: :coffee: :coffee2:
 

Tally ho ORO nice story. As you may have noticed, despite the wording on the title, it is not exclusively about Tayopa. your post is just what I wanted and hoped for, now more !

Don Jose de La Mancha
 

:laughing9: :laughing9: :laughing7: :icon_thumleft: :icon_thumright:

That one reminds me of one of my own early lessons in being cautious when far from a road. My partner and I were doing some prospecting in northern Ontario, using an aluminum canoe to get back in to the 'back country'; having gained considerable mileage in just a few days time, we had reached the last short portage from one stream to another and even the voracious skeeters were being cooperative. I was feeling rather 'chipper' as we now were only looking for a good spot to camp (you definitely want to find a place where the breezes will hit regularly, or be eaten by skeeters) so loading the canoe I got a little careless and instead of taking the few steps to place my sleeping bag into it, I tossed it. It struck the thwart brace and bounced up and out of the canoe, into the ice cold water and instantly soaked up water like a sponge.

Now this would not have been such a disaster, if we were somewhere near civilization or if that danged sleeping bag would dry but of course it would not, and took several more days of toasting it on the fire to get it dry. As luck would have it, those nights were especially cold, so I learned a good lesson about being careless when far from 'civilization'. Fortunately one rarely drops a sleeping bag into the river in the deserts!

I look forward to reading more, but wish to ask a quick question here - those game birds Jose', did you usually just skin them or did you go to the trouble of plucking the feathers? Just curious, and thank you in advance.
Oroblanco

:coffee2: :coffee: :coffee2:
 

Good sunny morning coffee time: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2:

You gentlemen are doing just fine, loved the stories.

I will continue from Nogales on down, a simple drive. To receive permits for 6 months and to pass customs, you had to report to a dual office where they issued personal permits first, the into Customs for inspection. No matter how much you insisted that you wanted one for 6 months, they only gave you a one month permit. when I objected, the official just grunted, smiled, then said" Just have it extended at any office, there will be no problem". what could I say? Later we found that there were no offices where we were going, sigh, another problem.

From there we went across the room to the custom official who didn't even look at our permits but simply said "You are carrying too much gear for just a month" . No explanation would work, he would simply point to the official stamp. So far he hadn't even gotten up from his desk to actually see what might be in the car.

The handwriting was on the wall, so we judiciously explained that perhaps we could pay a temp importation bond or fine?? He grunted and relaxed a bit and went into a bit of bargaining mood, then thinned out our small travel fund. This was repeated again about 15 miles below the border.

The road to Hermosillo was mostly just dirt , with an occasional bit of asphalt being applied in remote stretches, they were starting to work on it. There were no complete bridges completed yet, so we had to ford some icky streams.

About 100 miles down the road we again hit another custom inspection station, "El Infamoso Oases" . Here they were particularly tough, since if you didn't pass inspection (?) and you didn't wish to give up whatever it was that they pounced upon, you had a simple choice, pay or go back some 100 miles to the border. They had a very secure bit of income assured.

Also, this was the first and last stop between Nogales and Hermosillo with gasoline, and generally were out of it, and in this case they were. This assured that the small, crude, motel always had guests waiting for the gasoline Tuck to hopefully arrive. We had learned to carry 5 gallons extra of gasoline so we escaped this trap and continued on to Hermosillo, some 45 miles of basically dirt road.

In Hermosillo we learned that there was no gasoline available, but by scrounging around with the help of a kiddie, who was constantly mumbling something about his young sister (??) located 10 gallons of old, dirty gasoline which we had to filter. And were soon on our way to Guaymas, some 80 miles.

We relaxed for a few days on the beaches of Guaymas then continued on our way south, naturally with 10 gallons extra of gasoline

As we worked our way further south, the climate gradually turned more tropical and humid and the streams were big and deep enough that we couldn't ford them. so we had to use the pongos, a floating raft designed for ferrying cars. This isn't for anyone with a pace maker, a hairy operation at best.

We eventually arrived at Colima, then went to the beach where we decided to say for a week or so toughening up. Actually we had no choice, there were 'no' roads south between Colima and Acapulco.

Today, from Nogales, or any other port of entry, you go down a modern, well constructed 4 lane divided hiway to a large, efficient, Customs and Immigration area where you are quickly processed and are on your way. There are no further custom inspections, except for a possible roving one primarily looking for weapons, they generally simply wave you through when they see your temporary import permit on your windshield. There are many many modern gasoline stations all with good to excellent resturants and sanitary services. They even wash your windshields.

All rivers are crossed with excellent wide concrete bridges now. A modern highway runs down the length of the West coast of Mexico, where we walked and at times cut a trail, you can cruise at 70 miles per hour. Places where we set up camp on lonely beaches, now have towns, sigh.

Some times I feel as the old mountain men must have. out living my time. ©@

Don Jose de La Mancha
 

Don Jose,

I can really relate to your first post here. It's been over 40 years since I was in combat but once you have been in the mind set to fight like a dog to stay alive, it just never goes away.LOL. I knew a few guys who liked the killing but I liked the living part. It's a high you can't explain when you have been in many firefights and you come out without a scratch. It does change you and it doesn't go away. I never had much to do with guns after my service, except for teaching my son how to hunt. I found a woman I loved and we have spent our years together raising three kids and helping out with our grandkids. She would like me to carry a gun with me when I go into the sticks, but I don't. I'm afraid I would be too quick to use it. Besides, this old man still has a few tricks up my sleve that I've had to use on bullies over the years. LOL.

Treasure hunting has given me the excitement that is different from the everyday things that I've enjoyed raising my family. I really enjoy the stories that you and the others have posted here.

Thanks. Mdog
 

I been in treasure hunting since 1964, both searching parks and beaches and for large treasures. It give me a piece of mind and I enjoy reading comments and stories about treasures in other states and other countries. I am retired and have a great deal of time on my hands. Metal detector have greatly improve. I live in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
[email protected]
 

I too enjoy hot, humid, climates where an armed uprising can take place at a moments notice - that is why I vacation in Florida.

Good luck to you in your quest.
 

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