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Verónica López Álvarez sinks a long, T-shaped rod into the soft earth, pulls it out, smells it and screws up her face. Six other women flock around to sniff too, reeling back in horror at a stench like rotting fish.
Then it’s action stations. “We’re going to dig here,” says Delfina Herrera Ruíz. “It’s a body.”
With their shovels, the women mostly housewives in their 40s and 50s, some manicured and made-up in the sticky morning sun start sifting the earth with shallow, careful movements. The banter en route to El Teroque Viejo, in Sinaloa in northwest Mexico has given way to a grim focus.