Not quite guns at dawn

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We are up early to catch the bus back to Los Mochis. We wait with our bags at the front of the hotel as advised by the hotel manager yesterday. Sure enough, after ten minutes a minibus turns up, sees us and stops. The driver even comes out to carry my bag across the street to stow in the back. Unbelievably, there is another man waiting at the corner - it must be about 10 paces away from us...does he walk over? No. He waits till we are onboard, the bus then crawls a few metres up the road and opens its door for the man to board. OK, we are on our way...well at least for a few metres or so as the pattern is repeated with people being picked up every few yards down the street!

There were only three seats left on the bus when we got on...right at the back in the gods. We are thankful that we got a seat. The man on the corner took the last seat and everyone else has had to stand. There are numerous speed bumps and potholes on our ninety minute journey and we feel each one!

We have arrived in Los Mochis and, as the bus will stop wherever you ask, we plot the hotel on google maps and ask to be let off at the nearest point we think possible. We do have a vague idea where the bus is headed. We pay our fare and the driver jumps out to help us offload the luggage and we are on our way. The hotel we have booked is only five blocks away down the road. The pavements are useless for dragging luggage so we just walk down the road. Occasionally we stop to let a car or motorbike pass but generally it’s a little used road.

Our hotel is just a budget £20 for the night job so we are pleasantly surprised that it looks quite nice. It was chosen for its convenience as we have our two long bus journeys tomorrow so we were not expecting much. It’s only 9am and the room is not ready but they have a left luggage room.

We dump our stuff and call an Uber so that we can go to Los Mochis station to try to get our ticket refund. The Uber man wants to practice his English...though it’s tricky conversing. It’s quite a long way out of town (further than we had anticipated) and we are now on a dusty track, having left the tarmac highway. We cross a couple of sets of track and then we are back on tarmac approaching a very nice looking, modern and (also as anticipated), deserted railway station.

The ticket window says they are open 9am-2.30pm and eventually a lady strolls in. She tells us she cannot help us with our refund. She guarantees one hundred percent that we will get a refund - but not from her. We have to email Marie Sanchez and she will give us our money back. That’s the lady I have been emailing with no response! It’s not looking good. The train is definitely running on Friday, we are told. Definitely? Yes, definitely. One hundred percent definitely? Well...definitely, maybe! The sign on the wall states possibly Saturday! We decide we cannot trust either of these pieces of information much as we would love to ride the train. It’s just too risky so will still take the bus as it means we will still see most of the Copper Canyon, just not by train.

The girl on the desk now tells me that Maria Sanchez is located in Chihuahua. If we go to the train station there she will refund our money in cash. She seems to be indicating that it would be better to go there to get the cash and not trust the refund to our credit card...even though the refund is 100 percent guaranteed! Hmmm, I think we will definitely try although it may be just a way to get rid of us from her station!

We call an Uber to take us back to the bus station. Here we buy our tickets for tomorrow. This involves queuing twice at two separate windows since we need to use two different bus companies in order to tie in tomorrow’s bus journeys. At least we know that the long bus journey will be on a good, comfortable bus. One of the companies requires our passports - fortunately we have them with us...it’s the first time that we have been asked for them.

It’s now 11am and we are hungry. We set off back towards the hotel (only eight blocks away) with a view to finding a cafe on the way. We don’t but there is an Oxxo so we pick up some coffee and supplies.

Back at the hotel, our room is ready and they even upgrade us to a room with two beds and a window (most are internal rooms).

So what else to do in Los Mochis? Well, even the guide book has no suggestions - which is going some...usually they suggest some dire activity rather than telling you it’s a dump and no point in bothering! So we take a shower and settle down to an afternoon of card games and general sloth.

This evening we eat in the hotel restaurant. Neither of us have much if a clue what we are ordering. I order fish of some kind whils5 Ian orders chicken. As usual it appears that Ian made the better choice although mine is undoubtedly healthier. My fish turns up shredded - it looks a bit like tuna - with mashed beans. Ian gets breaded chicken with chips - very unfair! We also make a trip to the pharmacy for another tube of bite cream. I am covered in itchy bites including four in the most obscure of places - the sole of my foot!

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