La Paz – Los Mochis – Creel (Copper Canyon) : From Sea to Summit and Back Down 11th - 15th December

After convalescing for a couple of days, we looked forward to getting back on the bikes and a hilly ride took us to the ferry 20km up the road. We waited a good 3 hours to get on the ferry (bikes on last unlike any of the other 14 ferries we’ve taken) and watched crazy drivers speed around in circles and reverse all the lorry cargo onto the ferry. The ferry itself was rather swanky and very modern, in fact, the most modern of the fifteen ferries so far. The assurances on behalf of Stenaline that the loos were checked for cleanliness on a regular basis gave us a rough idea of the origin of the boat.

The ferry ride would have been a lot more enjoyable had they not featured a violent film in every single room of the ferry (restaurant, bar and salon room). The only escape was outside on the deck which was dark and cold and extremely windy. So for the best part of six hours, we settled down in the ’salon’ where we just about managed to ignore the first two (one about the US and bombs – yawn - and the other about wild African voodoo animal attacks) by firmly plugging earphones into our ears. N thought she’d give the third film a go - they couldn’t possibly choose three violent films in a row, after all it was two weeks before Christmas. She really ought to have judged the film by its title: Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, but stupidly didn’t and found herself watching some blonde girl driving around the middle of nowhere, getting lost, running over some hill-billy cum zombie, getting her face half eaten by him and then her whole body hacked cleanly in half by another one waiting behind her. So back in the earphones went and out came her book again, trying to obliterate the ghastly scene just witnessed. Meanwhile, children and families watched all of these films in peaceful bliss and N wondered why nobody else found watching such futile and gratuitous violence even vaguely distressing. Some lucky souls, however, slept right through the blood-curdling screams and thumping bombs and murders. We did not.

Another little walk around the ferry and a visit to the bar revealed lots of men with tables full of empty beercans in front of them. Considering the number of lorries that had been loaded up onto this enormous ferry, it was only fair to assume that many of these men would be driving their big lorries once the journey was over, and therefore sharing the road with us humble and possibly invisible cyclists. After some confusion of how to get back to the cardeck, and kitting ourselves and bicycles with every bright bib and bikelight we could find, with some fear for our lives we cycled off the ferry and into the dark. Luckily, we only had to share the road with the inebriated lorry drivers heading inland to Los Mochis for a few hundred metres before turning off to our hotel in the port town of Topolobampo.

The following day we cycled the short distance northeast towards Los Mochis, happily sharing the road with very few lorries and enjoying a lovely wide shoulder on a dual carriageway, almost all to ourselves (although two cars thought it appropriate to drive on the shoulder too). The only setback was a quite a headwind, taking a couple of kms/hr off our average speed.

As we entered the bustling town of Los Mochis, we saw a number of sickly dogs by the dusty roadside. Seeing dogs in Mexico instils an immediate fear in the cyclist, the adrenaline starts running and the heart pounding as the usual barking and chasing ensues at the sight of shiny wheels, and fleshy legs going round and round. In this town, however, all of the dogs seemed too sick to chase us, or take any interest in us at all for that matter, which suited us just fine.

Los Mochis is a lively commercial town with pavements thronged with Christmas shoppers, some interesting restaurants and hardly a gringo to be seen. After the tourist-oriented towns of the Baja, it felt good to be in an ordinary Mexican town. Some enquiring around town led us to Hotel Beltran, where we found accommodation at a much more reasonable price than Baja: for $30 we got a clean room, with phone, cable TV, Mexican (tepid) hot water, an added plus after the cold showers we hadn’t enjoyed the night before, and no cockroaches!

We’d heard that our train to Copper Canyon might not be running the following day, due to bad weather conditions - apparently lots of rain. However, by the end of the day we were assured that the train would be running and booked our tickets on the first class train to Creel, leaving at 6am, much to Paul’s dismay. Bikes are not allowed on the train, so we left them behind in the obliging Hotel Beltran along with lots of other unnecessary, bulky luggage.

After three hours slowly crossing the coastal flatlands, the scenery started to become very mountainous and canyonesque where the train tracks hugged the sides of the steep canyons, and looped around in all sorts of dramatic switchbacks as the altitud increased. Open windows between the carriages gave us some brilliant photo ops, some frighteningly close encounters with trees and tunnels, and even scarier glimpses of the sheer drops into the river below. At a particularly precipitous part of the journey the train slowed down to a crawl as workers stepped aside to let it go past. It was then that we looked down to see the wreck of a locomotive in the river 300 metres below. Two days earlier, the barman informed us, an unexpected rockslide had swept a freight train locomotive into the river below, along with the two railwaymen in it, destroying and killing all involved. It was this, and not the early morning showers which had halted the train service the previous day. Even more details of the horrific accident were revealed by the rescue team who boarded the train at the following stop and were happy to sate the sick curiosity of the passengers. Fortunately, accidents on this train route are very infrequent, the last one occurring some five years ago.

Our arrival in Creel, located some 2,300 metres above sea level, brought us our coldest temperatures of the trip, even colder than the -4 we experienced in the Canadian Rockies, and within hours our lips were chapped and hands were chafed with the cold. As we buried ourselves in layers of our hardly worn thermals and fleeces, we found a lovely bar where we chatted and drank beer with some fellow travellers in front of a very cosy fireplace that kept us deliciously warm.

Creel is a major base for tourists who come up to the mountains to check out the canyons. A day trip or tour is usually required to see the local delights, of which there are many. We ended up paying rather a hefty price for a private day tour in a 4×4, but it was very much worth it in the end, and our guide Julio was a wealth of, we hope, accurate information. The whole area is called the Sierra de Taramuhara, named for the native Indians who have lived there for centuries. The tribe actually calls itself Raramuri (the men who walk well, or run fast) but the Spanish missionaries saw it fit to give them the different name (they thought Raramuri too ‘fuerte’).

Not surprisingly, these people do not fare so well in modern developing Mexico as their traditional way of life – subsistence living in small insular family groups – is threatened by the benefits and temptations of the 21st century. They now earn money selling wooden trinkets, hand woven baskets and traditional blankets while trying to preserve some vestiges of their culture. Although most Raramuri live in small well-built houses, they also continue to live in caves for at least part of the year and our first visit was to a cave where one family live. It felt awkward and a little painful intruding in their home and their way of life as they sold trinkets to tourists and photos for tips.

Our next stop was also on the Raramuri communal landholding, where there are a number of different groups of curious rock formations. First we were shown the ‘mushrooms’ and the ‘frogs’, and then we were taken to the ‘Valley of the Monks’ (a rather prudish name bestowed by the Jesuit priests), but we felt the original Raramuri name of the ‘Valley of the Erect Penises’ was more apt given the size and shape of these large and very phallic curiosities.

After a quick look at another San Ignacio mission (remember the one in Baja?), we headed off down into the canyon, and while Paul ached to get on his much-missed bike and pump his way up and down the steep canyon roads, Naomi thoroughly enjoyed surveying the surroundings from the comfy seat of the 4×4. Julio really knew his way around and stopped the car at various points from which we hiked short distances for some very impressive views. On our way back, we stopped to see the Cusarare waterfall, not an easy place to reach! For the first time, we witnessed what 4×4s were really for, as we had to drive through a river and over very rocky paths and sheer stone before a further 20 minute walk to the spectacular, and much bigger than expected, falls (see photos).

Although we could have spent many more days exploring the area, lack of time once again meant we had to head back to Los Mochis. Another dramatic train journey, and our first encounter with a drunken Mexican lothario – N had a highly entertaining conversation with the rather inebriated Eliseo who spent the best part of an hour wooing her with beer and highlighting the numerous advantages of marrying a Mexican, before P was persuaded to come to the rescue. And before we knew it the 11-hour train journey was over and we were back in Los Mochis preparing once again to head South…..on the bus.

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