LAND TOURS CAN BE CROWDED, BUT ENCOUNTERS ARE MEMORABLE.

Byline: Story and photos by Eric Noland Travel Editor

COPALA, Mexico - It's the faces that are unforgettable. Even now, nearly two months later, they remain fixed in the memory. In one case, gnawing at it.

There was the schoolboy here in Copala who was positively entranced by a key-chain thermometer that hung from a day-pack zipper.

There was the old woman in Las Palmas whose smile liberated a glare of silver-capped teeth. She mistakenly thought a visitor's eight-word sentence in Spanish meant fluency, and she prattled on and on with obvious pride about the granddaughter who clutched her hand.

And there was the girl of about 8 in the adobe brick yard on the outskirts of Mazatlan. She was barefoot, filthy ... and adorably bright-eyed, disguising her begging by offering tiny packs of Chiclet gum for sale.

When the Carnival cruise ship Elation arrives in port on its seven-day Mexican Riviera trip, many passengers seem to opt for ocean-based activities: deep-sea fishing, snorkel trips, a day at a beach.

But if you want a fleeting glimpse into Mexican working life - and into some of these faces - two shore tours offered through the cruise line provide the opportunity. They are excursions into the coastal interior, the 3 1/2-hour Countryside Adventure ($21 per adult) out of Puerto Vallarta, and the seven-hour Sierra Madre Tour ($41) out of Mazatlan.

By no means do these excursions represent the best way to get a sense of the land and its people, but when a floating city of 2,200 Americans ties up at the dock for a day, some obvious logistical challenges are created.

Multiple tours embark on these itineraries, such that during my visit in May, at a small pottery and furniture factory outside Concordia, four motor coaches and a van crowded the road's shoulder, and tourists outnumbered craftsmen perhaps 20 to 1. Moments later, the same groups besieged an 18th-century church in Concordia. Still, these tours have their merit.

In Ixtapa (a Puerto Vallarta suburb, not the resort near Acapulco), guide Gerardo Hernandez directed us to a beautiful little church, which boasted inlaid tile, superb brick work and an exterior festooned with flowering plants.

Sadly, members of our group swarmed through it like locusts, talking loudly, blithely filming everything in sight, some men forgetting the single request Hernandez had issued - to remove hats. I felt sorry for the lone village woman who sat in one of the pews, gazing toward the altar and gamely seeking to worship amid this bedlam.

Later, as we rode deeper into the coastal hills, we spotted a man turning the earth in his field - with a manual plow pulled by a mule.

One member of our group hounded Hernandez with crass questions about economics, each of which this proud Puerto Vallarta native fielded deftly. How much does a doctor earn here? ``It's like in your country: A good doctor makes more than a bad doctor.'' How much do houses cost here (as we passed through a particularly depressed rural village)? ``They are passed down through the families, so they are more valuable for that reason than for money.''

In Las Palmas, women emerged from their homes to sweep stoops and even the edge of the roadway as our bus passed through.

It was here, at the town plaza, that the grandmother was exhibiting such pride in the girl of about 3 who held her hand. Through the rapid-fire Spanish, I was able to make out one particularly amusing point. Turns out the little girl was transfixed by one member of our group, a guy with a full white beard whom this toddler was convinced was Santa Claus arriving early.

The fear here is that she'll grow up thinking Old St. Nick has tattoos on both forearms, occasionally wears knee-length denim shorts, and, over an ample belly that shakes like a bowlful of jelly, is known to stretch a T-shirt that bears the message: ``To drink or not to drink ... what a stupid question.''

The next day, outside Mazatlan, our Sierra Madre Tour made a stop at a yard where laborers make adobe bricks under an oppressive tropical sun. They get $16 per 1,000 bricks, which kind of determines their working pace, said our guide, Alfonso Salman.

We were besieged by several younger boys, who begged for money when they weren't wrestling with one another in the dust. It was also here that the girl of about 8 was selling her gum. A 20-peso note - all of $1.80 - was burning a hole in my pocket.

``Please, don't give these kids anything,'' Salman said. He explained that the kids should be in school, but their parents send them out here, and the only way to discourage the practice is to send them home empty- handed. (Hernandez had issued the same earnest plea the day before in Las Palmas.) As a visitor to this country, it seemed appropriate to respect the wishes of a presumed authority figure.

Yet after we proceeded to Copala following the brick-yard visit, something seemed amiss. As we arrived at this former silver-mining town tucked into a cleft of the Sierra Madre Mountains - now restored down to the cobblestone streets and obviously mining a rich vein of tourist green - school-age kids were everywhere selling their hand-crafted wares. They were well-groomed, wearing clean uniforms and new shoes.

Salman said vaguely, ``There are two sessions of school, morning and afternoon, and these kids are between sessions.'' But unexplained was why the kids were on the street, hawking wares, throughout our entire stay.

A suspicion crept in: Maybe we were discouraged from giving money to the urchins at the adobe yard so we wouldn't experience largess-overload before arriving at this thriving community, which obviously stood in much better stead with the tour operators.

Tour buses crowded the town's edge, and guides literally communicated with hand signals as they directed their gaggles of tourists through the streets. (``OK, my group's done with the animal-skin gallery; all yours.'')

When we were herded to lunch at a small patio restaurant, the proprietor's stereo was playing a rousing version of ``La Charreada'' - but any hope of discovering an obscure Mexican torch singer evaporated with the realization that this was the voice of Linda Ronstadt.

Copala has so much political clout that a few soldiers carrying automatic weapons roamed its streets during our visit. At first their presence was unsettling and perplexing, but later it made sense. Money is all but tumbling out of pockets when the tour patrons descend on this remote mountain town. It would take only one well-timed strike by highwaymen - and the adverse publicity that would surely result - to effectively wipe out the Sierra Madre Tour.

It was in Copala that the young boy in the plaza, urged on by his amigos, approached to express such fascination with the key-chain thermometer. After hearing a rudimentary explanation of its function, he asked in Spanish, ``Is this for me?''

Later, back amid the comparative opulence of the cruise ship, headed for home, I wished I had given that $3.99 thermometer to him. I also wish I'd had more time to talk with - or at least listen to - the grandmother with the gleaming bridgework as she held forth on granddaughters and Christmas myths.

And I really, really wish I'd slipped that 20-peso note to the little girl with the haunting expression at the brick yard.

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Photo: (1 -- 2) A craftsman carves a decorative pattern into a seat back at an open-air furniture shop outside Concordia, Mexico, a town near Mazatlan, above, while a villager and her daughter leave church in Ixtapa, Mexico, just outside Puerto Vallarta, right. (2) Townsfolk and tourists alike congregate in front of an 18th-century church in Concordia, Mexico. The stop is included on a tour of the Sierra Madre Mountains. (3 -- color) Sidewalk markets in Copala offer a wide variety of goods, but the handmade blankets don't always reflect traditional Mexican patterns. Eric Noland/Travel Editor