Out in the dry heart of northern Mexico, among the creosote bushes and distant mountains of the Chihuahuan Desert, stand the ruins and chapels of old haciendas, great estates that shaped the history of the country. The chapel at the former Hacienda de la Inmaculada Concepción in Durango is one of them, a small whitewashed church standing in an empty landscape, with a bell tower and a simple interior built for the workers who lived and laboured on the estate. A hacienda was a world of its own, with a main house, a granary, a store, stables, workers' homes and a chapel, and the owners often held enormous areas, producing cattle, cotton, maize or minerals.
The region is high desert, around a thousand metres, with scrub, cactus, dry riverbeds and wide valleys edged by purple ranges. The nearby Bolsón de Mapimí is a vast basin of desert with a biosphere reserve, home to a rare desert tortoise and some unusual creatures. The Zona del Silencio, a spot where radio signals are said to fade, draws curious visitors, though much of the legend is exaggerated.
Towns here are small. Rodeo, with about four and a half thousand people, has shops and fuel, and Nogales, much smaller, a store or two. The larger cities of Gómez Palacio and Torreón are a long way off, so fill up whenever you see a pump, and carry water and a spare litre or two of fuel, since gaps can be over a hundred kilometres. Mobile coverage is patchy, so tell someone your route.
The riding is wide open, with long straight highways, big skies and little traffic, apart from trucks, and the main danger is wind, loose animals and long hours of sameness. Roads between small places can be rough, with potholes and sand drift, and unmarked dips after rain. Spring and autumn are the best seasons, with warm days and cool nights, while summer is very hot and brings fierce thunderstorms. Winter nights can be freezing. Eat burritos, cheese and machaca, the dried and shredded beef of the north, in a small roadside kitchen, and stop for the sunset, which is long, red and silent.