and a freight train running through the middle of my head

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We slept well our last night in Chihuahua. The dodgy room had a strangely relaxed feel to it, the rough wood floors polished by many years of bare feet and Chihuahua boots were cold, but the bed warm and comfortable. Our room was at the end of the building, down a long hallway, next to hard-working little gas heater which kept the few feet just outside the door at a comfortable temperature. Handy when you were searching for the keyhole in the cold.
The free wifi in the hotel would only work if I sat out in the stairwell, but there were some handily placed couches there, possibly for the purpose, possibly for a pitstop for inebriated guests as they struggled up the stairs from the bar below.
Which was playing some very decent trance and hard house as I sat there upstairs. It took all my willpower not to go and check it out. Well, willpower, and the fact I wasn't wearing any shoes, and was feeling sleepy from too much beer and tequila. Luckily, you couldn't hear even the bleep of a 303 in our room as we had to be up early for the train.

The train leaves at 6.30, so we had to be at the station at 6. There are apparently a bunch of people that stay at the hostel across from the station for this reason. I really wouldn't bother. Apart from the station and the hostel there's not a lot around there (bars, restaurants, etc) and it is at least twice the price of the place we stayed, and that's including the taxi fare from our hotel to the station at 6 in the morning.

The train station was already pretty busy when we arrived, and, once again, we were the only gringos at the station. We got on, found our seats, and waited.
There's something a bit special about a train journey; the sounds of the thingos clanking, the smells of the bizzos, the anticipation.
And we had plenty of anticipation, as 6:30 came and went, 7:30 came and went....

When we did get underway, it was far from the world's fastest train trip. Clearly the freight trains, or perhaps eastbound trains, had right of way as we regularly pulled of the track onto a siding to let them go past. This was pretty involved. Stop, get out and switch, go forward, get out, switch back, wait, reverse, switch, and so on.

With 657km of track, 86 tunnels and 37 bridges, El Chepe (as the train is known) goes through some pretty spectacular country, and as the train rattled on we started to see some of it. Beautiful sub-tropical pine forest clung to the sides of sheer drops, myriad streams poured down the mountainsides over huge boulders until slowing as they hit the bottom of valleys, spreading out to flow languidly over wide pebbled creek bottoms.
And stuff.

We had paid for a ticket to Creel, a town of roughly 6,000, and we arrived there mid-afternoon. From Creel westward you really only have the option of the train, so there was fair few people getting on at the same time, making things interesting. We jumped off the train into the morass of passengers, hawkers and bored looking blokes with guns, belting the unwary with well-timed blows from laden backpacks.

Some helpful children took an immediate interest in the fuzzy headed white man and the pretty blonde lady, and offered to guide us to our hostel.

How thoughtful! I thought, what luck!

For the price of a peso they led us across the tracks to the front door, a tough 2 minutes of navigation. What enterprising youngsters!

We had actually made a booking for this place, via email, as we had been warned Creel would be bust this time of year. And a good thing too The fact that we had booked meant that there was a staff member on the premises to book us in to the completely empty hostel. Not a bad little place, though, very different from the places we'd stayed in so far. It had a log-cabin feel to it, and there was a heater in the room. It also had hot water, such as it was, although the water never got quite hot enough, you know?

After we splashed some water on our faces we had a wander about. Not a hell of a lot to see, really, apart from all the kids cruising around on 4-wheelers. It appears that if you're not old enough to drive you just get yourself a quadbike, stack all your mates on the back, and head into town to cause trouble. Back at the hostel we had a chat with Roger, the owner, who asked if we wanted to have a look around tomorrow. We had already seen that there were a few different tours you could do from our walk around, and wee had planned to go and book one. Roger could do it for us cheaper, so we agreed to go with him the next day.

It was cold. Proper cold. I even got a long sleeve shirt out as it dropped below zero when we went to a little place for dinner.

Roger had said we would head off for a drive in his ute at 9 in the morning, so it was fortuitous that we were rudely awoken at 6 by the train hammering past, just outside the window.
The whole joint was shaking and, at first, I thought we were under attack. I swear that bits of random crap was falling from the ceiling. Then the airhorn sounded, and I knew we were under attack.
Luckily there's only 3 trains a day.
It was Sunday, so lady that cooks wasn't there when we went down for the complimentary breakfast (tip when you're on a budget go for the place with the breakfast – it does make a difference). Roger apologised, and suggested that Klaire cooked as is only natural. I found this somewhat amusing, Klaire marginally less so as her feminist hackles twitched. In any event, she cooked some good scrambled eggs. Given I always make breakfast back home it's only fair, dammit.

We headed off at 9, climbing in the front of Roger's new F150. I've always considered these Yank utes to be pretty stupid and bigger than necessary, but I have to admit that it was just a touch more comfortable than cramming 3 into the front seat of the Mazda Bravo. It cost us about $40 in total for 5 hours of driving about looking at stuff. Roger had a little English, and tried a bit out. He seemed quite relieved to switch back to Spanish when I pointed out it would be fine.
It turned out that he was quite the jack of all trades. He owned the hostel, had a farm in Batopilas (a town at the bottom of the canyon), had a boot shop in Chihuahua, and was the host of a Getaway type travel show in Guanjuato state. He certainly knew his stuff and had a lot to say about the state of the tourism industry in Mexico. I discovered that the main reason we have had no trouble finding accommodation is the drug violence. Tourism is way down and people are desperate. Mainly it is the Americans that have stopped coming here, but they had been the largest group.

We saw heaps. Roger was only going to take us to a few places, but we had been quicker than he expected.
The Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon) is four times larger than the Grand Canyon, and deeper too. So-called because the Spaniards weren't real bright and thought the green stuff on the rock was copper (it was some sort of lichen ). They're in the process of rebranding the canyon, pushing the adventure tourism angle and investing heavily in new infrastructure. Part of this is the recently completed tourist centre at one of the canyon overlooks, complete with a huge cable car and a bar/ restaurant (or what would be a bar/ restaurant when it had stuff in it and was actually open). When it does open it will have one of the best views in the world for a quiet beer. We had a look at the cable car. We would have gone on it, but it was ridiculously expensive – we wouldn't have gone on it in Australia. It was brand new, built by the French and paid for by the Chihuahua state government, so guess they had to get their money back. They didn't get any from us.

As we gazed out over the canyon, Roger said it was the deepest canyon in the Americas. I pointed out that the Colca Canyon in Peru was much deeper (we should know – we walked up and down the thing). He looked at me like I had grown another head.
I quickly added “Pero, este cañon es mas hermosa! Es maravillosa!”
He looked at me suspiciously, and continued his talk about the Raramuris.
The Raramuris are the local indigenous mob. Called Taramuhara by the Spanish in another display of intelligence (honestly, how does one hear “Taramuhara” when told “Raramuri”?), they live in and around the canyon.
As is standard for indigenous Mexicans they are poor, and many still live a subsistence lifestyle, getting a bit of extra money from tourism – jewellery, basket weaving, and the like.

We visited a couple of Raramuri communities. One was a mission. Being Sunday church was on and we stuck our heads in. The church had a sort of an honest look about it. Less ornamentation, and the service was being conducted in Raramuri.
There were also the cutest kids we've seen generally playing silly buggers in the dust outside. We left the adults to their agonising about natural instincts and hung out with the children for a bit.

The other was just a bit odd. Basically we wandered into someone's house. It so happened that they lived in cave which had housed some saint or another back in the day, and the residents had some bits and pieces out for sale, but it was still like walking through someone's lounge room.

A bit buggered, we headed back to town, had a feed and a few beers. We had a pretty good night back at the hostel.
Hearing the unmistakeable sounds of people watching sport I made my way downstairs and found some folk watching the football. Club América vs Santos. One of the guys was a mad Santos fan so it was getting a bit raucous, as it should be. And it was a good game. Mexicans know how to defend, they just aren't that interested in doing it, so the games flow. As it should be.

But the town wasn't quite as it should be. It was too quiet. Of the people watching the game, I was the only tourist. There was only one other occupied room at the hostel by then.

Whatever your view of drugs, the fact is that prohibition has been a colossal mistake. It's all about money, and when a young Raramuri bloke can make ten times as much looking after a dope crop as giving guided horseback tours he makes the obvious choice. So, the drug money flows in, and the violence increases, and soon tourists stop coming
So now the young Raramuri bloke doesn't have to make the choice – it's made for him because there aren't any tourists anyway. And the cycle continues.
You take the money out of the equation, and you start to solve the problem. You won't fix it overnight – the narcos still need something to do and maybe they start kidnapping tourists for money, or robbing liquor stores – but they were probably doing that before anyway.

You legalise small amounts of dope, and allow people to grow a couple of plants, and you drastically reduce the international demand for Mexican dope. That's where it has to start – demand reduction. In this, as in most things, supply side management is wrong. Controlling the supply of drugs simply increases the return to the narcos and does sweet FA to reduce consumption.

But won't legalisation increase drug use? Simply – no. There is NO solid evidence to suggest that there is some massive chunk of the population that want to use drugs but don't because they're illegal. The evidence suggest people use it anyway, and that decriminalisation causes a spike in the level of use which levels out quickly to a similar level as before.

And, for God's sake, the drug that is causing the most trouble here is marijuana!A drug that causes less social problems than alcohol, a drug that is less toxic than tobacco. We're not talking the Golden Triangle or the Afghan opium fields. It's stoners gobbling Cheezels, playing Xbox and listening to Bob Marley, Cypress Hill and depressing 90s grunge.

Sorry, rant over, now where was I?

Right. So, our time in Creel was at an end, but we had a quick walk around town, looked at a few souvenirs, t-shirts, etc, and sent a birthday present to Sarah.
We had decided to catch the cheap train, and it was a little bit of a mission to get on. Basically it involved a free for all, pushing, body blocking with backpacks, a couple of sly elbows, then a quick hunt for vacant seats. The clever folk would casually throw a jumper or handbag past the cattle race, landing it on a seat, then claim it had been there all along.
My fuzzy head and Klaire's pretty blonde head proved an advantage as the conductor spotted us and saved us a couple of seats together. We were sitting near a group of wealthy Mexican tourists who were more than a bit pushy. The class divide is alive and well here. They were most put out when they weren't allowed to eat the super tasty trackside food at their seats, rather than in the car provided for that purpose. We ate ours trackside, and it was awesome. For me, chile relleno – basically a giant chilli filled with cheese and mince, then fried in garlic batter. Klaire had something which looked odd, but basically tasted like a fantastic meat pie, also fried. I had to get one myself.

The views from the train here were even more incredible than before. A glance out the window revealed impossibly steep grades, switchbacks zigzagging their way down to a small black hole at the bottom of the canyon – the tunnel.
Unfortunately, the sun sets in the midst of this scenery, so you miss a lot of the really good stuff. We had been warned about this, so weren't too disappointed.
The disappointment came when we arrived at El Fuerte. There aren't that many good, cheap hostels in El Fuerte, and we were going to book a room. However, Roger had assured us, back in Creel, that finding a room would be easy.
He would have been right, except the pushy Mexicans had completely booked out the place we rocked up at first.
As always, though, the taxi driver knew another place – the Hotel Herradura. It was fine, if a little more expensive than we had been used to paying. By then it was quite late, so we simply crashed, ready for our trip to Mazatlán in the morning.

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Photos

Station at Chihuahua
from the train

Raramuri Kids, Copper Canyon
The little bloke was Ernesto, the others wouldn't give me their names

Comments

[Slowfeet]

Should Economists Rule?
I had the occasion to discuss the drug issue with a bloke on a train. He found my view that the US is at fault for the drug violence difficult to accept. There is no purpose in supply if there is no demand. Sort that bit out and you are on the road.

[Andrew]

They couldn't do a worse job than the politicians!
Couldn't agree with Adam more but its the politicians who can't figure out the difference between popularity polls and leadership that impose these rules. Economics just provides an explanation for what happens as a result.