“ode” is an abbreviated term for Odonata, the insect order of dragonflies and damselflies.

We went to Huicochic for the first time on September 1, 2025. On that trip we met Arcelia, who owns a cabaña she rents to tourists, mostly people on the weekends who cruise the backroads in the Sierra in their UTVs, a growing trend in Mexico. Frequently these people are in organized caravans, their vehicles blasting music and decked with flashing LED light-whips. We have a UTV too minus those accoutrements. We told Arcelia we planned to reserve a couple of nights in the near future during the week. 

We returned on September 17 for a two-night stay. Rafa Wong accompanied us on both trips, a wonderful friend and asset in the back country: he is bilingual, he shares our interest in the natural world, and he is at home with rural people (this cannot be said of all urbanized people). The dogs Nina and Dolly came on the second trip. The road from Alamos to Huicochic is unpaved except for a very few places on inclines or across vados (stream crossings, usually dry but variously flowing during monsoon season). These engineering efforts are frequently undermined or destroyed by rain events. The route to Huicochic heads north from Alamos, passing through the rural Sonoran villages of La Higuera, Los Tanques, and Los Camotes, where it turns east, passing through the towering pyramidal tailings of a gypsum mine and by the crumbling, vacant village of Taymuco and its well-kept cemetery, an indication that former citizens or their relatives return every year for Día de los Muertos to paint and tidy up the headstones and adorn them with plastic and living flowers and velas (candles). The road then gently descends to the vado across the Río Taymuco where José Carrasco, a cordial man in his forever-smudge eyeglasses, runs a little store that sells sodas, beer, and lechuguilla, the local hooch made from the native agave. From this point, the road begins to wind and climb, seriously. It loops into the state of Chihuahua, passing through Las Chinacas (population estimate 300), tucked in the cleavage of an arroyo, and takes a turn north. About twenty minutes up the road is the ghost village of La Lobera, its several burned-out, bullet-riddled houses consistent with the report that the occupants were forced out or killed in a narco skirmish about ten years ago. The road comes to a Y, the right fork continuing on to Chinipas, Chihuahua; the left fork turning back into Sonora and terminating in Huicochic.

The community is situated in a broad, flat basin, suitable for settlement and agriculture. The houses are scattered about rather than organized in a grid or along a main thoroughfare. Several streams crisscross this open area, rising and falling with the monsoon rains and creating significant muddy expanses. Mud is a big nuisance in the pueblos throughout Mexico during the monsoon. Municipios (the equivalent of counties in the U.S.), depending on their leaders and budgets, make an effort to pave at least the main streets in rural communities. It hasn’t happened yet in Huicochic. Much of Sonora has been in a prolonged drought with pathetic-to-nonexistent monsoons for a couple of decades, but this year, 2025, parts of Sonora have received rains reminiscent of the old days – i.e., before the upheavals of climate change. People are discernibly happy notwithstanding the mud. 

Distance from Alamos: approximately 45 miles 
Travel time: three and a half hours
Population of Huicochic: estimated 80
Elevational ascent: 384 to 1558 meters  
Biome change: tropical deciduous forest and semiarid thornscrub to oak and pine

We have been wanting to come to Huicochic for several years. There are different species of odes at these higher elevations. We had heard people talk about a nearby waterfall – El Salto – that was supposed to be quite beautiful – but what waterfall isn’t? And of course, we knew it would be cooler in summer up here in the pines. This year David was incentivized by reports from a fellow ode-head (a dragonfly and damselfly enthusiast) of several interesting odes at the waterfall and in an arroyo on the way to Chinipas. 

We went to El Salto on our first visit and headed there immediately on our return visit, even before dropping stuff at our cabaña. The sky was threatening to cloud over – bad for ode-heads (with few exceptions odes fly only in full sun). The road from town quickly ascends a rocky mesa, a jolting experience, then levels out but is no less jolting. From up on the mesa, the vistas to the west and south are stunning. The Sierra de Alamos and the rock monolith Cacharamba are outlined in deep purple on the distance horizon. I am reminded of “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” the wonderful feigning-good-riddance love song. Certainly the best remedy for lost love is a long view from a high place. 

The approach to the waterfall is not the typical one. The road stops at the verge of the falls where the water pours through a slot into the arroyo below. A rickety barb-wired fence along a portion of the rim provides neither protection nor solace. (On this second visit, I made it clear the dogs would stay in the UTV.)  

On our first visit a man cordial enough appeared out of nowhere on a mule with two dogs and took David and Rafa down the steep, slippery trail to the bottom of the falls. He took $150 pesos, the $50-per-person fee posted on a sign at the entrance. On our second visit David and Rafa engaged a man, his wife, and grown son who were working on a nearby cabaña. I had lingered across the stream. They seemed quite friendly. When I joined them, I handed the father $150 pesos. Rafa said this family claimed the fellow we met on our first visit was an opportunist. There appears to be competing rivalries between two adjoining ejidos about who manages the attraction and benefits from it. 

It started to sprinkle, then rain in earnest as we were returning to Huicochic. We got back about 3 p.m., or thereabouts. Here near the Sonora-Chihuahua state line, time equivocates. Our digital devices mostly were picking up Chihuahua time, which is an hour ahead of Sonora time. My analog wristwatch was on Sonora time. As we were starting to unpack the vehicle in the rain, Arcelia arrived under her umbrella to welcome us and open up the cabaña. She is charming, and the cabin simple and inviting. (We paid $4,000 pesos for two nights.) Before she left, Rafa had arranged for her to make tortillas for us. The cabin is perched on a hill overlooking the town with a porch for sitting and watching the creeks rise and fall and townspeople and dogs come and go. 

A stairway of massive rocks, perhaps hauled from a local quarry, leads up to the cabin. Each riser is a significantly different height, posing a danger to first-time climbers carrying baggage who grew up in a culture where equal riser height is a birthright. Granted, rough-hewn rock steps are unlikely to have precisely equal dimensions, but the unequal riser is a near-universal aspect of life in Mexico. While there are countless bogus stereotypes about Mexicans (don’t get me started on that topic), a quantifiable fact is a general indifference to steps and stairs with equal risers. I don’t know what this signifies, if anything, and this particular cultural character of uneven stair climbing is likely to fade away as Mexico grows ever more like the United States. In any case, it has taken me years to approach a stairway in Mexico with skepticism – and sometimes I still forget. 

A steady rain, not fierce, sometimes intermittent, continued. David and I took naps. Rafa went to pick up our tortillas and visit with Arcelia. Later, David and Rafa drove across the stream, while it was still crossable, to the only store in town and for miles around. Rafa had visited a few years previous and been touched by the elderly woman who owned it, a revered presence in Huicochic. Unfortunately, she died a few months ago. Her daughter Elsa has taken charge of the store. They returned with cookies and lechuguilla ($100 pesos for 600 milliliters in a plastic Topo Chico bottle). 

We entered a state of late-afternoon lethargy. We sat on the porch looking out on the town in the light rain, me drinking beer, the menfolk sipping lechuguilla. People and their dogs came and went, picking their way across the series of streams, on foot, on horse or mule, a few in pickup trucks. At once an ordinary and splendid parade. The sun set. We went inside. Rafa had brought along a tasty dish of calabacitas, corn, and queso. We sat around the kitchen table eating dinner in the dim light sitting on wood and metal chairs of such mass I can barely lift them. (Hefty chairs are another oddity of Mexico, especially in rural areas.) We retired to our bedrooms. Nina slept with Rafa. 

On Thursday we headed out around 7 a.m. on the road to Chinipas to find the ode arroyo the location of which David had mapped out. I can’t in truth say I enjoyed every aspect of this excursion. There are times, and this was one, when the silence and vastness and chasms of the Sierra Madre unnerve me. I want to see these places while I can. I don’t have to pretend I love the experience in the moment. For the vistas I have no words. Don Angel Esquer, our now retired 93-year-old gardener, used to travel this country. When we visited him after our trip, he told us of riding mules to Chinipas on a narrow trail through the pines that skirted around boulders and perched on the edges of shear drops, and when oncoming travelers encountered each other in a tight spot, one party had to back up their mules to let the other group pass. Today, the road – by comparison to several decades ago and considering the enduring remoteness of this part of the world – is excellent. It still perches on abysses. There are no other engineering options. At one particularly spectacular vista point, we could see through gaps in a layer of clouds, the town of Chinipas and the brown, meandering Río Chinipas far below and off in the distance. As we descended into the valley, the day became warmer, the sun more intense. We arrived at the “turn off” a little before 10 a.m., which was nothing more than a gap in the scraggly bushes. This is the old, abandoned road to Chinipas. 

When David is on an ode quest, he transforms into a person who early on I scarcely recognized – seemingly oblivious to everything around him but his objective. Now, I know this is David, the Ode-Head. Off he went vanishing down the road, Rafa and the dogs following. I quickly realized the combination of steep drop offs, blasting sun, and a rapidly descending trail comprised of scree was not for me – or my dogs. I grabbed Dolly – Nina was sticking with David – and we clambered up and back to the vehicle where we crowded into patches of what shade there was and waited in the breezeless heat for David, Rafa, and Nina to return. Dolly would have preferred to be with her pack, romping on the precipices with Nina, but I was having none of that. Around noon, my threesome returned, exhausted but triumphant. They had seen and photographed, among other odes, a Sierra Madre Sylph (Macrothemis ultima) and a mystery Sanddragon, in the genus Progomphus. David photographed this same Sanddragon at the Taymuco vado a few years ago; he is consulting with odonatologists about its status as a new species.

We retraced our route to Huicochic, no less impressed with the vistas, and stopping at a beautiful seep where we saw multiple Black-and-white Damsels (Apanisagrion lais), delicate damselflies hovering and perching in the dappled light. Back in Huicochic, we went to the one and only store to visit with the one and only Elsa. The store is a timepiece that has stopped ticking, fixed in the early 1900s, and Elsa has replaced her mother as a force. She is petite, with a beautiful smile, of indefinite age (gray hair with a purple tint), and agile (she was weeding her garden while talking with us). She was out front chatting with a customer, a lean and leathery fellow. He was about to head out to Las Chinacas on his mule laden with bags of commodities he had purchased. Before departing, he proffered nips from his plastic bottle of lechuguilla, a timeless courtesy in the backcountry of the Sierra Madre. Rafa needed a power cable with a special connector to charge a camera battery. Elsa had a surprising array of options in her inventory, and Rafa found one that worked. The 21^st-century necessity and craving for connectivity has infiltrated every nook and cranny of the world. 

On our last evening in Huicochic, we repeated our porch sit, had chicken jambalaya for dinner, went to bed. Thunder and lightning and rain pounding on the metal roof jarred us awake around 10 p.m. Nina ran and leapt into bed with Rafa. Dolly burrowed between us. The storm lasted about 30 minutes. I felt like we were inside the kettledrum during Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. It was the crescendo of our trip to Huicochic.