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Left Quito for a huge day of flights, first Quito to Mexico City (with a 1 hr stop in Panama City) then to Chihuahua in northern Mexico. Chihuahua is very remote, slap bang in the middle of the desert, and produced a fabulous pink-orange sunset as I sat in my taxi from the airport to the hotel. We splashed out a bit on a room at the Holiday Inn, and the most exciting thing for me was the fact that we had a kitchen attached to the room! Having eaten out almost constantly for the past 5 months this was a bit of a revelation and I knew I´d be looking for the nearest supermarket the next day.
Had the next day to relax and get my bearings a bit before Tessa arriving in the evening. Tessa is a friend who I met on a biking holiday in Cuba and has done a similar South America trip a few years ago, so shares a love of Latin America. We only had just over 2 weeks for our Mexico trip, but fortunately agreed on all the places we wanted to visit, so had our schedule pretty much already planned. I had
a wander around the city, which was much bigger than I expected, with many huge US style roads - bit of a challenge for getting around. We had reserved tickets on the El Chepe train through the Copper Canyon for later in the week, so I went to find out where the train station was. There was a very helpful man behind the counter who spoke good english... I got the impression not many people had booked for this train, as when I told him I had a reservation (in my best spanglish) he said, you must be Caroline Rawson! And promptly started singing "Sweet Caroline" to me (the Neil Diamond version, not Status Quo)! Found a huge supermarket on the way back, as planned, and managed to fill some of our huge American style fridge. Also had a bit of time to check out the pool in the late afternoon, a little bit chilly in the water, but had the whole pool area to myself which was nice!
Tessa arrived with no probs and the next day we wandered back into Chihuahua, this time for a bit more serious sightseeing. First of all we found the cathedral, rose-coloured
with some pretty impressively ornate carvings at the front and sides. Round the back of the cathedral were shops selling cowboy boots in every colour you could imagine!!! And these really are worn by most of the men in seemed, along with obligatory cowboy hat and moustache. Just as we imagined!! We then found the Pancho Villa museum, which was in the house where he used to live in Chihuahua. He was fighting for the revolution when he was assinated in his Dodge car - this takes pride of place in the museum, complete with bullet holes too many to count! Sadly, we weren´t allowed to photograph it... After this we went to the Palacio Gobernio (government offices), which is the most beautiful building - it would be amazing to work here! All ornate staircases, murals and stained glass windows, around a central courtyard. A side room off the courtyard had an eternal flame with the Mexican flag either side to commemorate Father Hidalgo who was shot here in 1811 after leading a rebellion against the Spanish in the fight for Independence. After this we headed back to the pool at the hotel, which we again had to ourselves! This
Tamahumara Indian kid, by Lake Arareko
He tried to sell us some handicrafts but we gave him a tip for his photo instead. was to become a bit of a theme over the next 2 weeks...
Up at stupid oclock, otherwise known as 4.30am! This was because the El Chepe train left at 6am, and we were supposed to be there 1hr early to collect our tickets.... not that we were worried, as we knew our reservation was safe, thanks to the singing ticket man. Train was very impressive, very clean and spacious, and all the staff had very smart uniforms and were very helpful. As we left Chihuahua we suddenly realised we hadn´t actually seen any chihuahuas there! This was very dissapointing, so we desperately tried to see if we could spot any from the train - I think I saw one, but wasn´t quick enough to take a photo! We weren´t really getting into the Copper Canyon proper on this part of the trip, as we were stopping to spend a couple of nights in Creel. We got there just after 11am - dead on time, despite what we had heard about the train always running late. The scenery hadn´t been amazing, but it was a nice journey all the same, and we knew the best was yet to come.
We managed to fight off the hordes of accomodation touts at the station, and made our way to the hotel we had reserved - we were in the Best Western. Having stayed in a few of these in the US, I have to say this one was much much nicer! It actually had some character (part of which came from dead animal skins on the tables and walls, but never mind!) and our room was like a proper log cabin, complete with fire! The rooms were lodge-style, all opening out onto the grounds, which were filled with pine trees. We hired a couple of bikes for the afternoon and did a short ride to nearby Lake Arareko, passing by some great scenery and local Tamahumaran Indians living in the caves - actually they live in a sort of cave-cabin combo, as they build log structures onto the front of the cave to make their homes a bit more substantial. In the Tamahumaran language, Arereko means horseshoe, and funnily enough that is kind of the shape of the lake. We followed various trails around the lake and pretty much saw it from every angle possible. It was hot and dry
Pedro, our fully Mexicano canyon guide!
Hat, check. Moustache, check. Boots, complete with pointy toe, check. Loves to pose, check. This guy is the real deal!!! He was great. when we were there but in the winter the surrounding pine trees would be covered with snow which would be beautiful.
In the evening we ventured out into town for dinner, but lots of places were shut, and one that we tried had a very surly woman serving who looked like she would definitely spit in our food, so we ended up back at the hotel. We weren´t sure how authentic the food would be at the Best Western but it was real Mexican stuff! We soon discovered that in Mexico you get Nachos and salsa (all homemade and different in each place) for the table where we would normally get bread. And the salsa was delicious!!! Thankfully they hadn´t held off on the chillies for us tourists...
The next day we had an organised tour into the Copper Canyon. Since it was a very quiet time in Creel, we had a driver just for us, his name was Pedro and he was definitely a proper Mexicano, as you can see from his photo. He wasn´t the sterotype Mexicano in the macho sense tho, he drove us very carefully up all the windy roads into the canyon and
was very gentle with us when we attempted to speak spanish to him! We passed through Cusuare village and canyon and also Basihuare canyon before reaching the Copper Canyon, so it was quite a drive. We stopped off for a few walks along the way. When we got to the Copper Canyon we did a longer walk, down the hill into the canyon and then back up again. It was the middle of the day by this point, so it was pretty hot and tough going! We were glad of our picnic lunch by the time we got back! I reckon our experience with overland truck lunches paid off, as we had a very tasty lunch of tortillas, cheese, salsa, and salad. We even chopped up a few fresh chillies to put in there. I reckon Pedro was impressed too!
On the way back to Creel we passed through the Valley of Mushrooms (Hongos), which had rock formations which looked like, well mushrooms, suprisingly enough! Then it was time to head back to Creel, and we managed to find another restaurant in town who also had the lovely nachos and salsa to start - definitely loving the Mexican food
and looking forward to sampling more on the rest of our trip...
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