Los Mochis and Creel

North America » Mexico » Chihuahua » Copper Canyon
June 24th 2008

Published: June 24th 2008

Hi there!

Just an update with our latest experiences. No photos this time as Rob has got his camera and as usual I can´t access mine from an internet cafe. I´ll have to get another CD made, in Chihuahua hopefully.

Well we left La Paz after 2 nights. We had to get up at 4am to make the 5am bus to the ferry terminal, which was about 20kms out of town. We were told we had to be there 3 hours before the departure time of 8am, but we thought we´d aim for 2 hours before. Oh, the optimism! We didn´t even get on the ferry until 9am, an hour after departure time, and it didn´t actually leave until 2 hours after that. They were not very organised to say the least. There was also a big holdup getting onto the boat with security (again the big machine guns) checking everybody´s luggage. It was a kind of nominal effort though, with the packs just being opened and rustled about a bit. I think it was more for show than anything else, and we have since found the same thing with the Copper Canyon train. So after being up for 7 hours already when the boat finally got moving (for a 6 hour journey) we were pretty worn out and a bit grumpy. In fact I had a small meltdown but soon recovered after a nap. But the ferry itself was really comfortable and quite modern looking. It even had a sort of Love Boat style pink lounge area with a self-playing panio, oh yeah! There was also a swimming pool on the deck, although it was empty. We were told to head for the movie theatre as the seats are the most comfortable so we did. We watched ¨Troy¨which was in English with Spanish subtitles but that didn´t really matter as the sound didn´t work. But we had seen it enough times to supply ´Is there no one else?!´and Brad Pitt bellowing´Hector´over and over again outside the walls of Troy. Rob went up on deck for a while while I slept and saw dolphins, 2 sea turtles and a seal! So jealous, although I did get a quick glimpse of some dolphins just before reaching Topolobampo. We were bracing ourselves after being warned by another passenger that getting off the boat takes as long as getting on it but in the end it wasn´t too bad. We arrived in Topolobampo (a small coastal port town) to find our train tickets waiting for us at the ticket office exactly as promised so that was a relief. We then got a taxi to Los Mochis.

Los Mochis is a teeming city full of dust and sidewalks covered in stalls and hanging things. It was 45 degrees while we were there which was just a bit too hot. Well actually way too hot. La Paz had been in the early 40s too but at least that was accompanied by a coastal breeze and less bustle. We kept ducking into places wth airconditioning and having cold drinks just to brace ourselves for the next few blocks. We have definitely noticed so far on the mainland that tourists are regarded in a slightly less welcoming way than in Baja. It´s not unfriendly by any means but just slightly less so than Baja was. There is also less English but we are still managing to make ourselves understood without too much hassle.
We had to stay in Los Mochis for 2 nights due to having booked the train ticket for Monday. For some reason we thought there could be delays with the ferry or something, hehe.

So it was another 4am get up time to get to the train station by 5am for a 6am departure. We had enquired with some taxi drivers the day before if we could expect to find a taxi at that time of the morning as we weren´t sure what the story was with the buses, and one of them ended up offering to meet us at our hotel. We weren´t 100% sure if he´d show up but he did so that was really cool. The train was extremely comfortable. We saw some owls as we were pulling out which was pretty cool. I pulled the pregnancy card and made us get the first class train, which Rob was pretty unhappy about as it´s destroyed his travel cred apparently. In hindsight though the second class one looked perfectly comfortable so I was probably a bit hasty but at least the 1st class one got us there faster. It still took 2.5 hours longer than the schedule said. It did leave on time but just seemed to be a lot slower than they made out. Also, our ´included´ meal was accompanied by a $30US bill so we have learn that sometimes ´included´ means ´available´. Ah well... So, 10.5 hours on the train in total and again very tired. There were quite a few American tourists and a Japanese couple on the train, all older than us.
The Copper Canyon is absolutely spectacular and highly recommended. It´s definitely been the highlight of our trip so far. There seem to be more indiginous Mexican people around here and I feel bad for not being able to buy any of their baskets and jewellery but we just can´t carry it around for another 6 weeks.

The town we are staying in is Creel, and it´s at about 2500 metres above sea level, which means it´s cooler, heaven! It´s funny to suddenly see pine trees and wooden buildings, log cabins even. Lots of eagles circling around too. Apparently in winter you can see cacti right up to the snow line, crazy! We´re staying in a nice hostel called Casa Margarita´s and the ´included´ breakfast and dinner really are free so it´s quite good value. They are also delicious. There are heaps of English speaking people our own age, which is the first time this trip. Some English, South African, French Canadian, a hilarious Aussie guy that looks like he´s from Lords of Dogtown, and of course Americans. So it´s been great being able to chat with other people. Last night at dinner a Mariachi band started playing so we reluctantly tipped as we hadn´t actually asked them to play and we had to halt our conversation through 3 songs. We did tip though, but a lot didn´t and they actually got pretty shitty. One even kind of tapped me on the shoulder but I told him Rob paid for us. Then he stood there loudly counting out his meagre earnings while they both looked mad. I don´t blame them really, tourism seems to be the only source of income for a lot of people in Mexico. Unfortunately for them backpackers tend to buy nothing but food and drinks and are happy with souvineers for photos.
Rob´s gone mountain biking today with some of others - I opted for more sedate exploration of the town. I also wanted to find some English books in the second hand place as I´ve almost finished mine. They were mostly Mills and Boon sorts but I found one short English one and a cheesy Dutch detective mystery. I guess I could do with brushing up on my Dutch!
Tomorrow we catch the train again to Chihuahua. It´s meant to be arriving at 2pm and take 4 hours but as it´s essentially the same train we got yesterday we figure it will be quite late.

Another exciting development is that I have been feeling the baby move the past few days. I thought I had for a while earlier but now it´s definite, so that is really great. Rob has come up with another looney name for it now: Topolobampo. It has a certain ring to it I must admit...

Right, I´ll leave you with some funny Mexican supermarket brands:
Bimbo (bread)
Lala (milk and yoghurt) - thought you guys at Aegis might like that one
Sissy (herbs and spices)

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