MEXICO'S COPPER CANYON - 1991

PREAMBLE

Soon after arriving in the Sea of Cortez in 1988 we heard about Mexico's spectacular Copper Canyon; however, at that time we were anxious to explore farther south, so didn't make the side trip. Then, in the spring of 1991 after spending the winter cruising the Sea again, we found ourselves anchored at San Carlos with my sister, Eleanor, and her husband, Paul, coming for a visit. It seemed like a good time to work in a land adventure, so we did. Because of the Chijuajua-Pacifico Railroad, the Copper Canyon is easier to get to than most of the Mexican back country. Here's the story of how we got there and what we saw when we did:

El Miercoles, 20 Marzo 1991

07:00 Tim showed up right on time to ferry us to the marina. Paul and I had stowed the Metz on deck so we wouldn't have to leave it at the dock. We were at the bus stop before 7:30 and only waited about ten minutes before it came along. The ride to Guaymas cost the whole sum of 5200 pesos for the four of us. With the help of a friendly local we got off at the right stop and walked the three blocks to the Tres Estrallas de Oro terminal. Our timing couldn't have been better. When I went to the window and said, "Los Moches", the clerk just motioned us through the door and onto a bus which was just leaving. We got the last four seats.

The ride to Los Moches wasn't as interesting as some we've had in Mexico. Most of the way it's on a heavily traveled four lane highway, largely running though flat farming country. There are two fairly large cities between Guaymas and Los Moches, Obregon and Navajoa, both flatland farming communities with dusty streets. It was a five and a half hour ride and we were ready to get off by the time we arrived. From the terminal in Moches we walked to the Hotel Santa Anita, about six blocks, and found that the travel agent I had called had indeed made a reservation for us. The room was clean and nice with a big shower which worked and a TV set, although we found out later that the El Dorado, which I'd asked the travel agent to get for us, would have been about half the price. We stowed our stuff then went for a walk around town. One big plus of the Santa Anita is that it is located in the center of what I'll call Old Town, a ten square block area which contains the central market as well as dozens of stores selling almost anything you can imagine. We did a bunch of window shopping, wandered through the market, bought a few goodies for the train ride tomorrow and a basket of good looking strawberries from a street vendor, then went back to the hotel to clean up before going to dinner. We'd passed a place near the hotel with big tubs of oysters, clams, and other fresh seafood during our walk and we went back there for dinner, stuffing ourselves with shrimp for about $7.00 apiece before heading back for the hotel and leaving a call for 4:00 AM.

El Jueves, 21 Marzo 1991

04:00 I mistake the ringing phone for the bilge alarm going off and am out of bed and on my feet before realizing my mistake. It's just the wakeup call. Breakfast in the hotel restaurant at 4:30 -- at least we don't have to hunt around for a cup of coffee. The shuttle to the train station leaves at 5:15 and we're on it. It costs 5,000 pesos per person. At the station there's only a small line at the ticket window. Most people seem to already have their tickets-maybe we should have worked that problem yesterday instead of wandering around town. When I get to the window I wish we had because the man says the train is full and there's no record of our reservation! Our travel agent didn't do so good here. What now? Well, there's another train, the second class train, in another hour. It appears you don't have to have a reservation for it. After some confusion the helpful clerk sells me four tickets to Creel for 40,000 pesos; that's about $3.50 apiece for a two hundred mile ride. We hadn't long to wait. The first class train pulled out right on schedule at 6:00 AM with several latecomers running down the track to jump on at the last moment. The second class train was then pulled into the station and by 6:30 we were on it. The biggest difference in the two is that the first class train has air conditioning while that function on the second class train is provided by windows that open. As it turned out we were happy to be on the latter.

We selected four seats in the rear of the center car and were getting settled in when we found that the reclining feature on them all had been disabled and they would only stay in the full down position. With the help of my Swiss Army Knife Paul and I managed to remove a couple of seat arms and get two of the seats in the upright position-we figured we could trade off resting and looking. The windows, the kind that you can slide up when you squeeze clips on each side, worked but were so dirty you couldn't see anything through them when closed. Paul made a valient attempt with a paper napkin and water but it didn't help much. No matter, it wasn't cold-yet. The train pulled out only about three minutes late. We ran for an hour and a half through flat agricultural country before starting to climb but not long after that things started to get interesting. The first indication of things to come was when we went through a mile long tunnel and emerged running along the side of a canyon with a white water stream in its bottom.

Up, up and away! From then on the ride was spectacular. The book says there are 89 tunnels on the Chihuahua-Pacifico railroad; I lost count somewhere around twenty. They come so fast it's hard to keep up. Every few miles the whistle would blow and a couple of minutes later we'd come to a halt at a tiny station where people would get on or off, mostly on.

We'd left Los Moches with quite a few empty seats but now there were people standing in the aisles or sitting on their luggage. One old Tarahumara man, I couldn't guess his age, sat in the aisle by us on his bag, a worn sugar sack. His feet, on which were tied sandals made of tire treads, were cracked and callused and dirty, looking like they'd never seen a pair of shoes, but under his straw, ranch style hat his face wore the expression of the eternal grandfather, solid and smiling as if amused by the ways of the children of the world. We found later that many of the Tarahumara had much the same kind of look in their faces. Tarahumara

At Divisadero the train stopped for quite a little while to allow the westbound train to pass. Many of the people got off to buy snacks or look over the side of the canyon but we stayed on board not knowing the ropes and fearful of losing our seats. Lois bought a woven cactus basket and a hide drum from an old, toothless woman who silently held them up to the window. We found that this was again the way of the Tarahumara, selling by silent presentation-quite a contrast to the aggressive technique of the Kunas. With all the stops, the ride to Creel took us nine and one half hours and, with the one hour change in time zone, it was 4:30 when we arrived. We supposedly had reservations at the Parador de la Montana and not knowing where it was, we commandeered a beatup green taxi to take us there. It was only a few blocks from the station-Creel is not a very big town-and the driver only charged us 4,000 pesos for the ride. The hotel had no record of our reservations-another minus for our "travel agent"-but fixed us up with rooms anyway. If it had really been Semana Santa we'd have been out of luck. We went to the rooms, cleaned up a bit, then went to dinner at a place across the street called Lupita's. One of the tour guides had told Paul it had good food at half the price of the hotel restaurant. It was a good recommendation. We found many of the locals there, including our taxi driver, and the food was excellent.

El Viernes, 22 Marzo 1991

We had originally signed up for the "Copper Canyon" tour when we got in yesterday but when we got to thinking about a nine hour dusty bus ride down into the canyon after our nine and a half hour train ride yesterday we changed our minds. Instead we opted for tour No. 2, advertised as a walking trip to some spectacular falls and a ride to a Tarahumara pueblo called Cusarare. It turned out to be a private tour just for us. Pedro, our driver, showed up right on time at 9:30 AM and off we went bouncing down the cobblestone street to the city limits, then driving along a beautiful, mondern asphalt highway to the southeast. Pedro liked to drive we could tell. He would roar along, tires squealing on the curves until he got to a "point of interest" then he's slam on the brakes and point to the "Elephant Rock". Sure enough, there was a rock at the edge of the road which looked very much like an elephant when viewed from head on. In addition to the elephant we saw turtles, the virgin, a cave dwelling (more on that later) and numerous other tourist attractions before he made a sharp turn off the highway down a bumpy dirt road marked with a sign announcing "Cabinas Barrancas de Cobra". A few hundred yards later we stopped before a rustic looking log building with of the same name as Pedro announced our arrival by blowing a multitoned horn.

No one seemed to be listening but when we got out of the van a tiny, snot nosed, Indian boy appeared, dirty brown feet shod with tire tread sandals tied to his ankles and around the bottom of his long pants, eyes down but not humble. Pedro asked him his name which he said was Santiago and then told us this was to be our guide for the morning; Pedro would be waiting when we came back in two hours. "OK, cuanto anos usted?", I asked Santiago. "Seis.", was his answer. So off we went, the six year old leading the way, every now and then making squealing noises with a balloon he gotten somewhere, or picking up a rock and tossing it into the stream along which the path led. We worked our way downstream, a pretty little river filled with huge bolders which showed signs of having been covered at times of the year. The vegetation on the banks was typical of dry, temperate climate, much like the country around Big Bear Lake in California; pine forest open underneath with little brush. Right now the river was low,

Santiago

but there were still deep pools in places into which Santiago loved to pitch stones. The trail was easy, and fairly well marked but we enjoyed having Santiago with us. At first he was very reticent, but as we took his picture a few times (He seemed to love that, the little ham.) he loosened up, and before long he was running ahead, hiding behind a rock, and jumping out at us pretending to be a bear.

Barrancas de Cobra

Pedro had said that the falls was three kilometers downstream and I think that was about right. It was almost startling when we got there. They kind of jumped out on us, appearing suddenly as a drop in the little valley we'd been coming down. Even though the water was low it made a lovely display as it fell over a wide cliff to pools over fifty feet below. We took a lot of pictures while Santiago waited patiently, climbing the rocks around us and making faces at us from up above. On the way back he took us on a slightly different route, walking in the river bottom and crossing it twice on stepping stones rather than taking the high route. We did pretty well although we all declined to follow him over a fallen log, taking a longer way around instead. Along the trail we found more of our silent sales ladies and Lois and Eleanor bought a couple of hand woven belts from them.

Back at the lodge we found Pedro working on his horn-it now could blow five notes instead of only two. Paul tipped Santiago, we had a pop at the lodge, then set off again with Pedro on the rest of our tour. This time it was to Cusarere, an Indian mission pueblo about two miles off the highway. There wasn't a whole lot to see there; some children herding goats, an old somewhat broken down mission which looked like it was used more as a tourist attraction than a church, and some fields of dried up cornstalks-it's early spring up here, too early for planting. On the way back we stopped at the cave dwelling along the road, a real, live, cave home being used by people today. The cave is a deep rock undercut in the hillside, a portion of which has been blocked in with rocks to form a room from which a stovepipe emerged. Not something you get a chance to see very often.

Back at the hotel, we cleaned up, did a little shopping, then went to the dining room for dinner. Sitting down, we took one look at the menu, looked at each other, got up, and went across the street to Lupita's again. This time we were a little later getting there, about 7:00 PM, and the place was full. We'd come in the front door and were kind of milling around looking for an empty table when a guy who seemed to be the boss came out of the back room. He waved his arms a couple of times, motioning some of the locals at a long table to scoot down a ways, then lined us up along the back side of it. I was at one end next to a pretty young mother and her son eating some good looking stewed chicken; Paul was at the other across from three young Tarahumara men dressed in western clothes. It wasn't long before we were trying to talk, the leader being the guy next to Paul whose name was Alvino. Paul had his little pocket translator calculator which is supposed to have a 5,000 word vocabulary but which sure seems to be missing a lot of the ones we need, and Alvino was facinated with it. There were several guys across the room watching us-I suspect they understood more English than they let on-and before long the whole room was laughing as we tried to communicate with each other. Again we had good food, a good service, and a fun evening at Lupita's.

El Sabado, 23 Marzo 1991

Creel is an interesting little town, but it doesn't take long to see it all and we'd decided that we'd like to have a little longer at Divisadero where you can overlook the main canyon than the twenty minutes that the train stops there, so this morning we packed up then took the No. 1 Tour, a short one lasting only two hours and leaving us plenty of time to catch the train at 14:15. This time our driver was Baltazair who took us bouncing out along a dirt road to a place where several Tarahumara families lived. We were invited into the main cave residence to take pictures of the cooking, sleeping, and animal pen areas.

Tarahumara Cave Dwelling

Again the "cave" was not quite like the one you picture when the word caveman is used. It was more a large undercut in the rock with a huge bolder blocking off one side. There was sort of a board fence across the front with a hinged gate through which we entered. Small rocks had been used to block in the openings around the bolder and split logs used to form a holding pen for sheep and goats far back in the corner. To the left of the pen in the

cooking area, boards had been leaned against the rock ceiling to make a semi-enclosed room with a small firepit on the floor. The sleeping area was along the opposite wall and appeared to be nothing more than blankets spread out on the floor of the cave. Outside there were several more formal buildings. Two, made of stone with board roofs, appeared to be living areas for other families, while the best built of all was the grain crib, a square building make of notched logs with a metal roof in which we could see corn stored. While we were there we saw only women, children, and one old man who set a straw hat on the floor for tips, but as we left several younger men came out of one of the other buildings. I suspect they were embarrassed to be the subjects of a gringo tour. The rest of our tour was less unusual. We drove out to "Mushroom" valley where erosion has caused many large rocks to be left standing on top of small pillars, some balanced in such a way that we could rock them with a gentle push. The Tarahumara's cultivated fields were all though that valley and a Mission school located there. Whenever we stopped to look one or more of our silent salesladies would appear from nowhere and would siton the ground, eyes down, displaying her baskets and dolls and belts and carvings for us to see.

Back in town, we talked to the leader of a tour out of San Diego, Jim Crestwell (619)566-6515, a dynamic and friendly guy who had 28 people in tow but who seemed also to find time to give us a few tips. He said he'd been traveling this area for twenty years and seemed to know it pretty well. He said that since we didn't have reservations he'd see if he could squeeze us in with his troop on the train. That worked out pretty well. Although there turned out to be plenty of room on the train when it came, we got to tag along with him when we felt like it, and to go on our own when we didn't. It's only an hour and a half ride to Divisadero. When we got there we went directly to the desk of the hotel overlooking the canyon only to be told that there were two big groups coming in and that there might not be room for us, but to stand by. Well, once all the rooms had been assigned to the tour groups Linda, the lady at the desk, said she had one room left, but ---. She led Paul and I off to see it. In a brand new wing of the hotel, perched on the edge of a 500 foot cliff and overlooking the 5,000 foot deep canyon, she showed us a room furnished only with two double beds, no dresser, no bedspreads, nothing but beds, sheets, and blankets.

Overlooking the Copper Canyon It had a huge stall shower and she said the heater and the water heater both worked. She could give it to us at a "special" rate, $173.00 for the four of us, three meals included. We'll take it! We piled our packs in a corner of the room, slid open the glass door which opened on our patio, an area enclosed by a rail fence at the very edge of the cliff. What a spectacular view!

The rest of the day we spent walking the trails along the edge of the canyon to the west. A quarter mile from the hotel along a trail which Jim said ran for a hundred miles we found more cave dwellers and more silent salesladies then the trail came to an end. It took several tries with Paul acting as scout before we found the right trail which led beneath overhanging cliffs above and above sheer drops below along the edge of the canyon. Lois and I gave up after a mile or so, but Sis and Paul went on for another mile out to a point where they were silhouetted against the skyline standing on top of rock cliffs a thousand feet high.
Dinner at the lodge was great! Machaca, fried rice, beans and chili's with queso done with a special touch and served with hot tortillas, a Tarahumara feast.
On top of the Cliff

El Domingo, 24 Marzo 1991

Along about 3:00 AM the heater, a gas wall mounted device which had kept the cold out, went out. That wasn't a big problem because the room had been warmed and the blankets were good; but when I tried to take a shower I found that the demand heater had also quit. I got half dressed, went outside-it was close to freezing-and, after using up half a book of matches, got the pilot lit. Back inside I ran water in the basin and found that it was hot, so I undressed and got into the shower. Nothing but icewater! The heaters had both gone out again! It turned out that there must have been some moisture in the propane lines and it had frozen during the night. All of the heaters in the new wing were down. Bunch of unhappy tourists this morning.

After breakfast, not as good as dinner but OK, more hiking, this time to the east along the canyon rim. It was a little easier walking here-all on top of the cliffs rather than down below-but with some great viewpoints where we could get right to the rim of the canyon. No guard rails here, and it sure gives you a funny feeling in the pit of your stomach when you look down, especially when looking through the lens of a camera. After the hike, lunch at the hotel, then a demonstration of dancing and footracing by the Tarhumara. The footraces are unique; barefoot or wearing tire tread sandals, the men kick a wooden ball about the size of a baseball along the road, running a relay race of many miles, said to sometimes last for three days. The women who also run, do it a little differently, carrying a hooked stick with which they throw a braided double ring ahead of them as they run. In the hotel store we bought a book about the Tarahumara, a people who make Copper Canyon more than just spectacular scenery.

Chihuahua-Pacifico Car We didn't have quite as good luck getting seats on the train today, in fact for a little while we were wondering if we'd get on at all, but the conductor finally said to go to the dining car and he'd "see what he could do for us". So, for a good portion of the trip we sat in the club car where the air conditioning on this "first class" train wasn't working, the windows wouldn't open, and lots of people were smoking lots of cigarettes.

Finally we found a couple of seats in the next car and installed Sis and Lois there while Paul and I sort of wandered around, sometimes sitting in one of the lounge areas, sometimes standing in the aisle. Our friend Jim was all through the train, doing his tricks with balloons and showing everyone how to make animals by twisting them into strange shapes. An entertaining ride but not nearly as nice as our second class one going the other way, and it cost four times as much. Going up it cost 10,000 per person; coming back it was 42,000.

It was about 8:30 when we got to Los Moches. We grabbed the first taxi in sight and went to the El Dorado where they fixed us up with rooms at half the cost of the Santa Anita. We were ready for bed.

El Lunes, 25 Marzo 1991

Up in the morning, breakfast at the hotel, then to the Tres Estrellas bus depot where we arrived about 8:30. After standing in line for fifteen minutes or so, I was told that the buses today to Guymas were all sold out, we'd have to wait until tomorrow. Well well, well-I made a reservation for tomorrow then we spent half the day exploring other options: checking the other bus line, Pacifico, where we missed one bus when we went across the street for lunch and they sold our seats from under us; getting our hopes up on a car rental which was supposed to be available in an hour but which never was.

Finally we gave up and went back to El Dorado. This time they gave us rooms right on the swimming pool and we spent the afternoon lounging around, swimming a little-it was warm in the sun but the pool was unheated and a bit on the chilly side. We went to dinner at a place called the Granerio (Grainery) and had some very good brochettes.

Suffering

El Martes, 26 Marzo 1991

Back at the bus station this morning, right at eight o'clock to buy our tickets which they wouldn't sell us yesterday. Our reservations were good though, the four seats near the driver where we could see out through the front window. An uneventful ride to Guymas, walk to the main street where we caught the San Carlos bus, crowded ride to the marina where I called Tim on the radio. He came immediately, running me out to the SEA RAVEN where I dropped the Metz in the water and ran in to pick up the rest of the crew. Good day, good trip, now for some cruising. On to Cruising the Sea of Cortez?