Copper Canyon Train

We arrived in the small town of Los Mochis late one night, around 11pm, having taken the ferry across from the Baja and were planning on getting on the train bright and early the next morning, 5am! This meant a quick shopping trip to the one store still open in town to stock up on supplies for the journey and also to get some dinner as we’d managed (too busy watching drunken Mexicans stagger around!) to miss the canteen on the boat.
The following morning, a little sleepy eyed, we jumped on board one of the only trains left running in Mexico – The Chihuahua Pacifico Copper Canyon train. We depart at around 6am and fully knowing that the interesting part of the journey doesn’t start for a few hours so try and catch a little extra sleep. At around 7am we give up on that idea and sit back and start to watch the journey unfold. This journey also represents our first bit of civilised train travel since we’ve been away, no spital, chewing chicken feet, people staring, snoring, funny smells (both human and livestock!) and general fun of Asian trains to deal with, just comfy seats and a policeman with a huge gun patrolling the carriage! We head through small farming villages and the train stops at places where there seems to be nothing but a dirt track and a shell of an old waiting room building with no windows left, no furniture, no sales office not even a grumpy railway assistant (they always seem to be grumpy!) but from out of nowhere people get on! The scenery slowly starts to get more and more interesting, flat farmlands give way to mountains and lakes so we head down to the bit between the two carriages and stick our heads out the window like a dog in a car – quickly pulling them in again as we whizz into tunnels. The highlight of the journey is the section that takes you past Copper Canyon and a view point where 3 other canyons meet. The train pulls into the small settlement of Divisidero, which not only gives you wonderful views of the canyon it also serves up the best chilli rellanos and tacos going! Sorry, we are here to see the canyon not pig out on the local tucker! The area is actually made up of over 20 canyons and is four times larger than the Grand Canyon plus deeper in places, the views are pretty spectacular and give you a small sense of the scale of the place. From here we jump back on the train for an hour or so and head to the nearby town of Creel instead of going all the way through to Chihuahua – Creel sounding like a cool little town in the midst of stunning scenery and Chihuahua sounding a bit like the dog of its namesake, might look cute (well a bit pug faced!) but it is also likely to bite at anytime, well I say a bit but infact in the city’s case you’re more likely to get shot!