COPPER CANYON
By Paul Petti
Last February, my wife Joyce and I joined a tour to Copper Canyon hosted by a lady in our Spanish class. There were 43 of us on this trip. We were picked up at various places in Mazatlán by a bus on a Friday morning which took us to the city of El Fuerte. El Fuerte was chosen over Los Mochis so that we could sleep a little longer on Saturday morning. The train starts early in the morning from Los Mochis and passes through El Fuerte on the way to the Copper Canyon. Our hotel in El Fuerte was very accommodating with great service, nice rooms and good food. We were treated to a walking tour around town with the highlight being the fort (El Fuerte). The fort is a museum with old artifacts and a view of the surrounding area that was spectacular. El Fuerte was founded in 1564 and was once the capital of Sinaloa. The town is very picturesque and clean. The town square is well kept and surrounded by a church, a museum and an hotel built in 1890. On Saturday morning we were taken to the train station by our bus. The train traveled through the canyon and provided us with spectacular views of the canyon on our way to Creel. We traveled from an elevation at El Fuerte of 400 feet to Creel at over 7,000 feet. At first there was farm land with brush and some cactus, then we came to oak trees, and then into the pine forests. The railroad is a marvel of engineering as it cuts through many mountains and crosses many bridges. The rock formations are very fascinating. There are twists and turns in the railroad and you are able to see lower elevations of the train tracks as you climb to higher elevations. Once you even do a 180 degree turn inside a mountain. One of the nice things on the train was that our group had a car to ourselves. The train also served excellent food. Upon reaching Creel, we were picked up by our hotel and shuttled to the hotel. We had Saturday evening to walk around town, have dinner, and get some sleep. Creel is very small and can be seen in a 15 minute walking tour. Creel is also the regional center for the Tarahmara Indians and you see many of them walking around in their traditional dress, which is very colorful. Sunday we toured through the Tarahmara Indian territory and visited their village and even got to go into some of their caves, which many of them still dwell in. It is not easy to understand why people still live in those surroundings in this day and age. The temperature was near freezing on this day and these people did not appear to be warm enough. Many Indians had thongs on their feet which were made from an old rubber tire with straps attached to them. Everywhere you go in this area you find Indian women sitting around with items they have made which are for sale — baskets, beaded jewelry, shawls, wood carvings, etc., all at very reasonable prices. They live in a beautiful area with fantastic rock formations around them, but very primitive. We stayed overnight again in Creel and left for Divisadero Monday morning. From the train station in Divisadero you walk down a slope of about 100 yards to your hotel which sits on the rim of the canyon about 6,000 to 7,000 feet above the floor of the canyon. This 100 yard path is lined with Indians selling their goods. Most of the people on the tour spent a few bucks here. When we checked into our room the canyon was fogged in, so we went into the lodge and treated ourselves to some libations. As we were sitting there enjoying the company of the other people on our tour, the fog started lifting so I ran and got my camera and proceeded to take pictures like crazy before the fog settled in again. At the hotel the canyon is quite wide from rim to rim and filled with trees of all kinds, very green and spectacular. That evening we were reading in bed to put ourselves to sleep when it started raining fairly hard and the rain put us to sleep. We did not draw the drapes in our room so we could look at the view at any time. Our room was right on the rim and you could stand on the balcony and look straight down. When my eyes opened in the morning and looked out our doors to the veranda all I could see was snow. During the night Mother Nature dropped an inch and a half of snow and covered everything. So I got my camera and ran around shooting all the shots I got the day before so I could have a “before” and “after” picture. It had been about 20 years since we had been in snow as you´ll almost always find us at the beach. The scenery was breathtaking and the highlight of our trip. Tuesday we hopped back on the train and returned to our hotel in El Fuerte where we caught some shuteye and got the bus Wednesday morning for our trip back to Mazatlán. The trip was wonderful and in our opinion really worth taking. earl@pacificpearl.com

 

 

 

 

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