G'moring WC, my friend. Usual in the patio?

K. for the better or worse, since no one actively objected to it, as a fill in -- here is a page from my journal regarding the finding of the Gloria Pan mine. Of necessity it is heavly edited..

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Morning Ellie, for some reason I was thinking about those two bells, Tubares, and Your campaign.

I remembered that I met Lupe vega who helped me with the Gloria pan mine investigation. He arranged for me to go to Jorge Juan's cabin in the Gloria Pan barranca. I had a young couple of Tarahumaras that agreed to act as my guides.

We went afoot since I was in prime condition and figured that i would have no problem with a young couple, that to me were kiddies, sheesh was I wrong. I left my mule and sleeping gear at Tubares since there was no grazing up there, and carried only 35 lbs - after all, it was only for one day..

The young couple in their teens, promptly ran up the hill and disappeared. I staggered on trying to catch up with them, near the verge of a heart attack, and finally stumbled over the rim where i had last seen them, I saw them wrestling (?) in the grass. As soon as they saw me, they jumped up laughing, and RAN up to the next crest. This was repeated at least a 'billion' times that first day. sigh

Then to add to my woes, it started to rain, a cold penetrating rain with wind. sheesh I was beginning to feel sorry for myself and wonder why or how I ever became involved with exploration and lost mines. As for my guides they appeared just as happy as if they had good sense.

We stayed in a cave that night where I warmed up a bit. The next day was an even worse repetition of the first, if possible. The boy called to me and pointing to a cleft in the ridge above us, fairly close to the Gates of Heaven, and said that was where I had to go. From there it would drop down into the barranca of the Gloria Pan. All that I had to do was to go down the barranca until I saw Jorge Juan's cabin. simple enough, no? As They then 'ran' off giggling and playing, I overheard a remark on how i had slowed them up from a two hour 'walk' to two day one??

The 'next' Day, about dusk, I finally saw a small one room brush covered shack and stumbled to the door, where with numb fingers I tapped on the door. No response, so I repeated the knocking, still no response, so I started kicking the damn door, it swung open. There was no-one there, so I entered.

It was by now dark, my matches were wet, and after three days of stumbling through cold gusty rain, continuously wet, I was trembling with cold and beat. All I could think of was getting warm and to sleep. There was just enough light to let me see a broken cot with a sleeping bag on it. Without further ado I crawled into it. sheesh it was so dirty and greasy that it was stiff as a frozen sail , but it did get me warm and I went to sleep listening to the wind howl, shake the cabin, and the roar of the rising arroyo.

The next morning it was bright and sunny, so after starting a fire and cooking breakfast, I returned to liking the life of an explorer and commenced searching the cabin. it was litterally full of junk, from mining equipment, to books and pages of notes. Being nosey, I quickly found why my unwilling host was gone. He had formented an uprising against the Mission in the 30's, He was called the "Arab". The gov't was still looking for him, There were vague references to a Priest having been killed. He had been involved in several murders and had lately been shot in the stomach, but recovered. This was my unwilling host, sheesh.

This is your job Elle, check on this.


Anyway, I quickly found what fit the sealed entrance of La gloria Pan mine and decided to return to El fuerte, where my friend and partner was waiting, so that he could be there when we opened it. That part you already know. About this time an Indian arrived with my sleeping gear, so I returned to Tubares with him.

Incidentally the return trip only took 1/2 a day ?

So Elle, dig up what you can about this mini, aborted uprising. But remember, the Gloria Pan was closed in the 1600's, along with Tayopa, Tepoca, Las pimas, LaTarasca, and two others near Caborca. This also includes El Fuego de Barras (?) south west of Tubares.

Side thingie, to the East from the bell tower, on the south side of the river, there is a small rock walled corral. Check it with a metal detector. During the last rev. a gov't pay roll officer, with his escort ,were caught by the rebels and took refuge in there. They were all killed but the pay roll was never found. It is probably buried in there . It was claimed to be mostly gold, but this I doubt, since even a single peso was a large amount of money in those days, still the silver would be worth quite a bit and could go to help restoring the Mission.


Thank you Jason, as usual it is Elle's fault. This is a fill in for her project.

Don Jose de La Mancha

p.s. You asked about that giant aquatic serpent, sigh. Since it was in June, before the first rains, the river was crystal clear and only about 30 meters wide, knee deep. Jorge and I just waded across to the northern side where I was looking for a giant 'Sun' carved on a cliff. Where we waded, it was a straght stretch for perhaps 1 kilometer. Down stream it entered a deep gorge. The Indians told me never to enter it snce noone had ever been found again after entering?

Then the first rains hit, overnight the river became about 75 meters wide and was perhaps 30 ft deep,with roiling, muddy water. We would go as far upstream as we could, find some drift wood, place our clothes on it, then swim across in a diagonal. Ths was repeated twice daily.

Then one day, on our last crossing, we were on the southern bank, sitting in the sand drying off, perhaps 20 ft from the edge of the river, when I saw this enormous Eel like thing rise out of the water for some 2 meters, look around then sink back into the muddy water. At first it didn't register, then when it did, I turned to my Indian friend and asked "did you see that ", he just grinned and said "yes, it is just one of the serpientes of the river". "Serpeinte"? I asked "just how big do they get"? "oh about 20 - 30 meters" .

"20 - 30 metes sheesh , then the obvious question, err, ah, just what do they eat "? "only fish " he nonchalantly replied. Even so, I never swam nude again sheehs blushing.

In any event, I sent off a report on this Serpeinte, and also data on a little venomous snake - thr Pichiquate - about 9 -10 " long, to a well known North Eastern University's Herpetology dept, and never received the courtesy of an acknowledgement, or telling me to stop bothering them with such nonsense, so I can imagine where my report and drawings ended up, since they already knew such things do not exist ???