Searching for turquoise in the Cargo Muchacho Mountains

 This morning I was up before 9 o'clock and fixing coffee.  A little overcast and cool, but I noticed Tom and Deb were sitting in the sun having coffee, so Yuma and I joined them.   It wasn't long before Deb and Riley came up the road from their morning hike and we all sat around and chatted for awhile.

After awhile we broke up so Tom could finish his chores for the day and I needed to finish my breakfast.  Walking back to the WL, I could see a big plume of black smoke rising over the sand dunes.  I believe it is a burning dump in Mexico.

After breakfast, Deb stopped by to say she was going to hike up the mountains to check out the turquoise she said she saw up there last week.

I needed my steps in so we jumped into the Jeep and Yuma and I followed Deb's directions to the place in the mountains.

We walked the last mile and entered a wash area and there it was.

Wash we walked up into.  Way back in Mexico there is a dump fire making lots of smoke.

After examining the blue rocks, we decided it was just rocks with iron in them making the surface blue as it oxidizes.

After the rock investigation, we decided to walk further into the valley cut out by the water over years.

The black spot in the middle is a small mine.

Perspective on how large these mountains are.

As we were heading out of the wash, a small ATV came up and a man and woman hopped off.  We talked with them for awhile.  They were very interesting.  They were sailors, and had lived on a 40 foot sailboat for many years.

They had sailed across the Pacific four times and once, they spent years sailing around the world.  Brave, if you ask me!  They were also Canadians from British Columbia and they had been to the island that Deb and Riley live.  Small world!  

Mine only went back about 10 feet.

We decided to explore the back roads of the mountains and that turned out to be a very rough rough ride.  At 3:30 we decided to go back the way we came to make sure we were out before dark.

We saw lots of red barrel cactus on the side of the ravines.

On the other side of these many dirt deposits is the quarry that we saw yesterday with the water in it.  Years of weather has given these piles an artistic look.

It was time for our afternoon get together when we returned, so we all sat around talking till the sun started to set and everyone headed home for dinner.  It was a nice day.  Got my 6000 steps in with ease and also a lot of relaxing, which is great.

Thanks for stopping by.