Los Mochis: Copper Canyon Railway

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Day 17 – Thursday 6th October 2005

If Rob and I were to catch the train bound for Chihuahua we had to be at the station to buy our tickets about 30 mins before it departed, which was 7am. This meant getting out of bed at half five and catching a bus which would take us across the city of Los Mochis.

We got to the station and bought tickets to Creel for $360 pesos. The train we were taking was the “Ferrocarril Chihuahua al Pacifico”, or the Copper Canyion Railway.

The Copper Canyon is made up of six different rivers, each carving its way through the Sierra Tarahumara. When taken as a whole, it is four times larger than the Grand Canyon, and it has 9 canyons which are deeper. By taking this train we would be able to see the canyon in all its glory, as well as some other amazing scenery.

The first 3 hours of the 11 hour journey were relatively uninspiring (apart from the cacti which were as tall as the telegraph poles), and therefore I decided to catch up on some Zzzz´s. When I woke up, the views had started to improve. The first of many bridge crossings gave a glimpse of what lay ahead.

The further we travelled, the deeper into the canyons we went, twisting and turning through the ravines, following the same path as one of the rivers. The train meandered through it all, gently chugging away. Although we had bought 2nd Class tickets the carriages we fully air conditioned, and we had plenty of room to spread out. However the best part of the train was the area between the carriages, where we were able to lean out of the doors.

At around 4pm the train pulled up at a station called Divisadero. This is the only part of the journey where the actual Copper Canyon is visible. Although it was stunning, all the scenery that had gone before was just leading up to this point. The train only stopped at this station for 15 minutes, but the view we had of the Copper Canyon, even for such a short time, was the icing on the cake of this superb train journey.

From Divisadero the train took about an hour to reach our final destination for the day, Creel. This is a popular stop on the Gringo Trail as it is an ideal location from which to explore the surrounding canyons and rivers. We checked into the Casa Margarita for two nights, which cost $160 pesos in total. This turned out to be a great deal, as included in the price of the accomodation were breakfast and dinner.

After sampling the dinner which was very good, I was pretty tired so I finished my book (American Psycho) and went off to the land of nod.