For years, I flew over the mountains of the Sierra Madre, over the
Durango state in Mexico. This part of Mexico is rich on prehispanics
vestiges and legends of the conquers lost in the mountains.
Near San Juan de Camarones we found an amazing cave with lots of prehispanics paints
on the walls.
The cave is almost inaccesible and took our expedition more than two days to
reach the foot of the hill where the cave is. From Culiacan to Camarones there is no
road and only the Piper Cub can land on a spot near.
All this part of Mexico was inhabitated by indians, some of them warriors who fought against the
spanish conquers in defense of their land.
The spanish conquers left also a lot of traces here. We found in a town named Vazcogil a
spanish sword, belonging for generations to the same family. Mr. Secundino Ayon, the current owner
of the sword, pose for us with his treasure.
Near Vazcogil we also found a cave with a lot of bones and skulls. Locals says the cave
was used as a cementery for indians and also for spanish. The bones seem to belong to people with
a height above the average of the indians.
After a day in Vazcogil, we headed to the cave with the paints. This part of the Sierra
Madre is hard to walk because the altitude, above 8,000 feets, and the rough of the terrain.
After a day, we reach the cave and make a camp on a spot near to get ready the equipment and
explore inside the next day.
The view from the top of the mountain was terrific. In some ocasions we can see the planes fliyng
below us traveling to others towns in this part of Durango. The entrance of the cave was very
thight and we can go one by one. But in the inside opens in a big room with three pasages to more
rooms.
We use head lamps to find our way inside the
cave and finally we found the big painted room.
All the walls of the room were painted with all kinds of figures and forms. We can see some
humans representations as well animals. The pains were made with some kind of mineral paint and
are very well conserved in spite of humidity and bats.
Others visitors before us, made some excavations in differents parts of the cave, maybe searching
for a treasure, but fortunatelly, they made litte damage to the paints. Ours was the first exploration
with a more scientific purpose and we were the first ones to made a map of the cave and take
pictures of the paints. Later, experts determine the paints are more than 5,000 years old.
