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Travel Stories

Adventures in the Sierra Madre

J. Ramon Palacios (jrp)


Keywords: photo, journeys, las_ventanas, mexico, horseback_riding, cowboys, zacatecas, adventure, sierra_madre

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"Las Ventanas"

"Las Ventanas" is a gigantic valley which under the misname of 'ranch' is sold periodically and with precise regularity, every 7 years: when abundant water comes out from its very deep well. Unfortunately in a finite volume and for a time only long enough to dream a little. One of those occasions was our turn to be the enthusiastic buyers.
 

JR and Shunkawacan

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And although my beloved compadres cried sour tears over the 500 recently planted walnut trees dying of thirst, my son Juan Ramón and I dedicated ourselves to enjoy at plenitude the valley's 115° Fahrenheit at noon and 35° at midnight, its solitude, the sound of silence, barren, with giant 45 miles per hour jackrabbits.

 


In that landscape, within the confines of a huge corral, our horses remembered their mustang ancestry and became wild. It took us more or less an hour to saddle up. It was part of the fun, besides having to make a lengthy surrounding journey to enter this valley of extinct dinosaurs. The fact was later proven by the colossal intact and complete skeleton of a mammoth, found a few yards from the single entrance into the valley.

 

 

In that segment of our cow-less cowboy era, I had a horse which I named "Shunkawacan", for the Yellow Hands Sioux indian legend of that who didn't know whether it was a horse that dreamed with being a man, or a man dreaming he was a horse. Tough and resilient quarter horse, noble clear chestnut, he acted well his name.

 

 

(4 Votes )
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Originally written on May 2, 2005

Last updated on December 14, 2017

J. Ramon Palacios J. Ramon Palacios (jrp)

JRP is one of the two co-founders of Nikonians and has in-depth knowledge in many photographic areas Awarded for his contributions for the Resources

San Pedro Garza García, Mexico
Admin, 46140 posts

1 comment

David Summers (dm1dave) on November 23, 2017

Awarded for high level knowledge and skills in various areas, most notably in Wildlife and Landscape Writer Ribbon awarded for his excellent article contributions to the Nikonians community Donor Ribbon awarded for his very generous support to the Fundraising Campaign 2015 Ribbon awarded as a member who has gone beyond technical knowledge to show mastery of the art a

Fun story, and awesome pics. Thanks for sharing!

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G