Stranded

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This morning, at 2am, we were woken by a massive thunderstorm - hammering rain and lightening! It continued until around 5am although, by that time it was subsiding. Great, we have to get up at 5.45am today.

So now we are packed and ready to go. Our Uber is supposed to arrive between 6.30-6.45am. There are two lingering close by, but do we get one of them? No, instead we have one that is coming from the other side of the centre - it will take 6 minutes. No problem, we have allowed ourselves time. Two minutes away and the Uber cancels. Guess what, we have another Uber coming from the other side of town. And it’s ‘Angel’ - he has cancelled on us before! Now I’m getting less of an Uber fan than I was before.

Angel does decide to turn up today. It is still raining and the street is full of puddles that you could practically swim in...Dr Foster and all that! Ian valiantly loads up our bags - one in the boot and one on the front seat - it’s a tiny car! Now he can’t get in the back...it appears they only have one back door? Or maybe he just couldn’t see it in the dark!

The bus station is only five minutes away but we seem to go on a weird indirect route. I try not to be too suspicious - they do have some strange one way systems here and half the roads are being dug up as part of the town’s regeneration programme. It will be very nice when it is finished. :-)

We check in at the bus station at 6.55am - right on time though we suspect the bus won’t be - it’s coming from Mexico City. They don’t know if it’s running late - I suspect that means it is!

We find a waiting room with nice comfy seats but the security guard indicates we should pass through to the waiting room on the ‘bus’ side. We obviously look trustworthy citizens as no bags are checked and my metal hip does not set the walk through scanner off - a sure sign that it’s not working!

The guard now escorts me to the alternative waiting room (with hard metal seats) - points at a bus number on another vehicle to illustrate that I need to be on the bus number that matches my tickets and also points at two bays where the bus might turn up. I think I’m getting pretty good as this sign language lark.

The bus has turned up and it’s pretty much on time. We are impressed. I pull the thin paper ticket wallet out of my bag only to find the tickets are missing - I have taken them in and out of my bag so many times that they must have become detached. I find them screwed up in the bottom of my bag.

Tickets checked, we are now allowed to stow our luggage. We approach the bus. It’s the same guy but he needs to check my tickets again. We establish that our destination is Los Mochis and the bags are accepted. He indicates that the tickets can be put away. I am just boarding the bus when Ian points out that there is a nose bag trolley today - and yes we can have one. The same guy is issuing nosh and he needs our tickets again. :-) We choose our drinks and our guy smooths out my crumpled tickets, staples them back on to the thin wallet and we are on our way.

It’s still pouring with rain and looking as grim as a November day in the UK. The road is running parallel to the coast, not that we can see it.

Just over an hour into our trip and the black clouds have given way to clear blue skies. In the background the Sinaloa mountain range just with a few odd fluffy clouds obscuring the tips. The only way to obscure the drivers choice of piped music (which appears to be getting louder as we journey on), is to plug in our individual earphones. I have chosen Nillson and Cliff to listen to this morning.

Five plus hours later and we are deposited in Los Mochis, the start of the Copper Canyon. Rather than catch the stupid o’clock train from here to El Fuerte we have elected to catch the bus today. This is the only bus that I have been unable to book so it’s likely to be stressful. What we know is that there are only two buses that ply this route. Both leave from different and vague locations ‘somewhere’ in Los Mochis (it’s a big place!), the trip takes two hours and it’s incredibly cheap so highly likely to be a chicken bus! I have warned Ian that he needs to keep his cool!

Normally the taxis are queued and ready at the bus stations but here there are none - just a queue of locals also wanting a taxi. We call an Uber who arrives within five minutes and believes that the bus station Ian has earmarked is correct.

We enter the station to buy our tickets. Dos, El Fuerte? I am flapped away to the window next door. I try again. Dos, El Fuerte. It would appear not...I have no idea what the reply means but no tickets are forthcoming. I have a terrible feeling we might be in the wrong place. Using the translator, the guy types...you need to have three pineapples! What?

Maybe he is telling me to move three windows up? He points to his right. But when I look there are no further windows. One of the drivers takes pity on me and tries to explain with hand gestures. I think he is saying the bus to El Fuerte is not here, we need to walk up three streets and turn left. Thank goodness I can count to three in Spanish now!

We exit the station walking straight through the middle of a Sunday market with our wheeled luggage clattering behind us. At the third street we turn left but then what? I go into an Oxxo to enquire. The lady kindly comes out of the shop and leads us up a narrow alley to a bus station. We would never have found this on our own! No ticket office here, just buses and hoards of potential passengers. Ian notices a relatively smart 17 seat minibus with signs in the windscreen ‘El Fuerte’ - a short conversation involving more sign language with the driver confirms his destination. We load the luggage in the rear and board - it has slightly better air con that the bus that brought us here But very little leg room. Oh well, at least we have a seat.

Unfortunately it appears that the bus driver is only going to leave when he has a full load. After 30 minutes we still have four empty seats, so now the driver cruises the surrounding streets looking for more passengers, eventually returning to the front of the station and heading off when he has one seat remaining. This does not prevent him from stopping at virtually every bus stop in Los Mochis to enquire about other passengers. At one stage we have four standing and eighteen sitting, plus the driver! The trip takes 90 minutes, plus 30 minutes circling time, during which time the rains return.

And now I receive a rather unsettling email from the hotel we are heading towards - it appears to indicate that the train through the Copper Canyon - the one we were due to catch in two days time and literally the only way to continue our route, has not run since 22 September and will not run again until 18 October! We hope that the message has become confused in translation.

We are impressed that the bus actually drops us at the hotel door. We are following our progress on google maps and stand up right as the van reaches our hotel. We later realise that the town is so small that the bus probably passes all of the hotels.

We book in, and discover that the worrying email is correct - the train tracks have been broken since September and will not be fixed until the 18th (if then). Nice of them to let us know. The train is the only way over the mountains, there is no road here. We attempt to cancel our next hotel which is over £100 a night. Thankfully the lady speaks English. She establishes that we are in El Fuerte, that we have no means if reaching their hotel, that she will issue a refund. We can only hope as I have no idea how we will prove all of this to our insurance company! The following hotel has a free cancellation policy so this is immediately cancelled.

Where to go from here? We consider the alternatives...all of which involve heading back to Los Mochis by bus. It’s a huge blow as the Copper Canyon was to be one of the highlights of this trip. We will make a decision tomorrow - now we need our dinner!

Not only do we appear to be the only guests at our large hotel, but we are also the only diners at the fish restaurant we select (one of only three eateries in town). I suppose there are no tourists if the train isn’t running! We enjoy an excellent meal of grilled bass and freshly squeezed lemonade. We try to remain optimistic, outside the courtyard is full of hummingbirds, magic.

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