From One Extreme to the Other

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The railway trip from Creel to Los Mochis was absolutely fantastic. OK so it´s not the Grand Canyon but I am happy to say that this time I wasn´t feeling under the weather and I was able to appreciate every moment of it. Like the Grand Canyon though it was overwhelmingly beautiful and travelling by rail was a wonderful way to fully appreciate the changes in the scenery as we descended from 2,500m down to 120m. The train would snake into and around countless mountains (actually I say countless but I´m sure there are figures out there) through scenery that seemed to change with every bend with each appearing to have its own ecosystem happening. We went from pine trees in the mountains, to papaya and banana trees right down to cacti the size of trees on the plain. I took so many photos and dehydrated myself in the process but I just didn´t want to sit back in the air-conditioned train. I was very happy being by the window in between the carriages taking in the heat and smell of the surrounds. But inevitably I had to go in. Thirst will do that to you.

So, we arrived in Los Mochis at around 9:30 and I had suggested we stay in one of the hotels mentioned in the guide book. OK, so there was no mention of clean in the guidebook, nor was there any mention of no window, nor the mindblowing loudness of the air-conditioning, nor the size of the room which just managed to squeeeeeeze in a double and single bed. The photo does not do the room justice. In the photo it looks perfectly fine but the reality was that even though you have a shower, you never felt quite clean if you know what I mean. Not quite bring out your own bed linen but, well, fairly close to. Charlie has not let me live down that this hotel experience was my choice. It did have satellite TV though and I enjoyed watching Frasier sans Spanish dubbing.

The next morning we got up early to catch the first bus out to Guadalajara. I knew that it would be a torturous journey of 14 hours and, now that we have a lot more experience with Mexican buses, I don´t really like to repeat that kind of trip. We got placed at the back of the bus, under the speakers and near the toilets. I don´t need to see that it was a bad combination. But we made it. Enough limited experience has shown that all Mexican buses will show at least one DVD. On this trip we were overindulged. We had a viewing of 4 DVD´s including one kiddie movie shown at a time that children should be asleep and the volume turned up to such an extent that had anyone been asleep they would no longer be. It was LOUD. For future bus trips I am planning to take on board my earplugs, an eyemask (so I won´t be subjected to the violence on screen), my cardi (they pump up the air-conditioning full blast to around about 15C) and my lavender oil (better the smell of lavender than the smell of those toilets...).

We arrived in Guadalajara at 2:30 in the morning feeling decidedly dehydrated given that the only toilet stops we had were at the pick-up and the bus would only hang around for about 5 minutes before departing again. Still, we managed to get a taxi into town without being ripped off and ended up in a nice(ish) hotel in the centre. More on how we spent our days in Guadalajara to come....

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