We were astonished to see this family, with the young girls and babies, perched just a few feet from a vertical drop of hundreds of feet, as the mother made and sold baskets.
It gave us shivers to watch the toddler girl prance around a few steps from the precipice. The older siblings made sure she didn't fall.
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This is a typical Tarahumara dwelling, a tiny log cabin with a wood burning stove, a vegetable garden, no electricity and no indoor plumbing. There are hundreds such dwellings around and in the canyon in the area where Francois traversed on horseback.
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The dining room of the Mirador Hotel has very good food and great views of the canyon.
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These girls make and sell their baskets at Copper Canyon. They are a photogenic, and mysterious, people.
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Rita
Pascale gives gifts (little bracelets) to little Taramuhara indian girls, in front of their log cabin home built into a cave on a canyon cliff.
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The Tarahumara women (and girls) learn to make intricate baskets from grass and long pine needles, from a very young age. The skill and quality of the baskets is very impressive. It takes an entire day to make a small basket that then sells for 2 to 3 U.S. dollars.
The Tarahumara women are unbelievably circumspect; they will not look at you when accepting money for a purchase, nor acknowledge you at all. They typically hide their faces behind a scarf or veil. They will not negotiate on their prices.
The typical transaction will go like this:
[buyer] Quento questa? [how much?]
[vendor, averting her eyes, and speaking very softly] Treinte. [30 pesos, about $3 US]
[buyer, hands money to vendor]
[vendor, without looking at buyer, takes money and says nothing].
I think their circumspect attitude comes from their value of showing respect to strangers.
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Here's a view of the Mirador Hotel, perched on the rim of Copper Canyon
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Francois and I did a 2 hour guided horseback ride around the rim above Copper Canyon. Along the way we saw many Tamahumara indians. These handsome people wear very colorful clothes, make intricate baskets that they sell to tourists, and grow corn and beans on their garden plots. They live in tiny log cabins (about 10 foot square) or sometimes in caves with log cabin fronts.
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