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Hi everybody sorry its been so long since I added a blog!
Firstly I want to say a big thankyou to the lovely people that have written on my message board, all the posts bring a smile to my face whenever I look at them- so please keep them coming!
So, I am no longer on the Copper Canyon Railway, this is all retrospective. I started on the railway on Friday 8th February at 6am (getting up at 4.45am was painful but I got through it... with difficulty) and went from Chihuahua to Creel on the train. It took about 5 hours. This part of the journey is known as having less impressive scenery, and many people get the bus for this part as its quicker and has a flexible timetable- but I´m glad that I stuck with the train- its far more novel (and comfortable on the primera express) than a bus. This section of track went through only 4 of approx 39 tunnels, so that tells you at lot about the terrain- as its not as mountainous it not as spectacular. I still liked it though. Anyway, I got to Creel around lunchtime, and impatiently bode my time until dinner by napping, eating and exploring. My own company was getting a little dull- I wanted to meet people and go exploring! Breakfast and dinner were included at the hostel I picked- Casa Margarita- and you would have to be seriously antisocial not to meet people at the two large trestle tables set up by the front door. My patience was rewarded at dinner, and I found partners in crime to go on tours with. The travelling stories started at dinner, getting particularly animated and amusing when they had to compete with the mariachi´s, who were playing very loud music in a very small area. This place had a fantastic atmosphere. I tried to drink beer, but it just doesn´t taste good, I´m trying to adjust. After dinner most of the people from the hostel ended up drinking at a very cosy little bar with a big log fire, which was very welcome after the freezing cold outside.
On Saturday, I joined a tour that took a group of us to some of the local sites. We went to Tarahumara homes in caves, lago arereko, cascucare (can´t remember how to spell these names?!) waterfall which was slightly lacking in water due to the dry season, and visited some valleys named due to the appearance of the rock formations- such as valley of the frogs, and valley of the mushrooms. I was a little disappointed that I didn´t see the most amusing one (I warn you this is childish!). According to my lonely planet (aka- the bible) the valle de monjes translates to the valley of the erect penises, but locally in Creel it was referred to as valley of the monks... I´ll leave you to decide which you prefer... That night at dinner I got talking to more travellers and a plan was formulated for us to hire a car the next day. It was much cheaper than going on tours and allowed us flexibility and freedom which are invaluable. Then we all headed back to the log fire bar for more drinks.
On Sunday we hired the car from around 9am to 6pm on Monday. Our plan was to drive to Batopilas via various stop offs. There were 5 of us, all from Europe, so between us we represented England, Holland, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. I was unfortunately the only one that didn´t speak Spanish, but as 3 of the others spoke English I wasn´t totally in the dark. Listening to them chatting in Spanish was good for my listening skills anyway. We stopped at random places that we thought may contain interesting things and on our adventure we managed to stumble accross many random homes, villages, lookouts and we even made time for the elephant rock (yes a rock that looked like an elephant). We had the satellite radio on listening to Spanish pop music and the windows wound down. It was a proper road trip! To get to Batopilas we had to cover 70km on a paved road, and then another 65km on a notoriously dodgy dirt road (although calling it a road is pretty generous) from an altitude of around 2,500 to around 400 (my numbers are not particularly accurate as they are from memory- but give me a break I´m sure you get the jist of it). The road to Batopilas is just wide enough in some places to although two vehicles through, and it is very rocky and hugs the side of mountains. It goes on forever and as your speed is so restricted it takes a while. We left Creel around 10.30ish, and made lots of random stops until we arrived at Batopilas just before 6pm. Thankfully, through pure luck we arrived before it got dark. We went to a hotel that had been recommended, and then spent some time getting turned away from 3 restaurants that were closing for the night (!) and therefore couldn´t give us dinner. So we ate at the hotel instead. My enchiladas were pretty spicy and I was feeling a little delicate, so my plate was kind of passed around the table for the others to finish it off. After dinner we gathered in one of the rooms for drinks.
On Monday, the others got up at 7am. The people I was with were proper travellers- they liked to get up early and explore. I on the other hand woke up with a well developing cold and all the symptoms, headache, runny nose, really unpleasant cough that made me nauseous- you get the idea. So I stayed at the hotel while they went for a wander round the village. There were so nice though, looking after me and bringing me drinks before they left- being ill is pretty normal when you´re travelling, i´m just so grateful that I got a cold and not food poisoning or something else icky. Anyway, they came back to get me around 9am, and I joined them to go visit a local church and to wander to local villages. All this spontaneous exloring involved a lot of climbing up rocky slopes and trying not to fall over. I was a little embarassed by my less than great balance but as I didn´t end up on my backside I think i did ok. There were a couple of close callls though... We got back on the road at lunchtime. The further we went the worse I felt and by the time we got up the dirt road I was really struggling. The journey was quicker today- I reckon the Spanish guy was the fastest of the drivers- only the 3 guys drove, as I was ill and the other girl, called Sarah, doesn´t drive. We gave a mexican family a lift part of the way up the dirt road (a man and 3 children as opposed to the one man we gave a lift to on the way down to Batopilas). We made a few other random stops at a river etc, but I waited in the car while the others explored. As soon as we got back to the hotel I went straight to bed, only going out reluctantly for about 10 minutes that night to stock up on drinks. I didn´t leave my room until Tuesday evening when I forced myself to go to dinner. It was only when I was sitting with a bunch of strangers that were there as a group so only talked to each other, that I realised that my car hire buddies had left that day and I hadn´t given them my share of the fuel money. Oops. Well hopefully I´ll bump into them later on in my trip. An American couple sat with me but as I was losing my voice conversation was pretty stilted. I headed back to bed soon after.
I was confined to hotel rooms for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday unfortunately. I moved to a different hotel on Wednesday, on a mission to find a room with a heater that worked, and a phone. I found them and spent these days reorganising my flight to Puerto Vallarta, as due to my cold I didn´t get to La Paz. The most eventful that it got during these days was a splinter, and a chat with the pest control man that spoke excellent English. I phoned home and had room service. It seemed to do the trick though and by Saturday I was ready to leave Creel. I got on the train around 11.15, and took it all the way to the end of the line at Los Mochis, arriving there at 9.30ish. I really enjoyed this journey, standing between the carriages looking out as we went over bridges and through tunnels literally took my breath away. I had random conversations with people while taking photos. I was also extremely pleased to find one of the Chihuahua statues (from the dog parade during the sumer in Chihuahua) at Divisadero, where the train stops for 15 minutes for everybody to rush out with their cameras and take pictures of the lookout view. I even ventured to the restaurant car for lunch. I did find drinking coffee on a moving train to be a bit of a challenge, and split a lot of it but thats all part of the fun. I then went to the bar car and ended up being provided with free drinks, at one stage the bar man bought me a non-alcoholic cocktail. I don´t know exactly what was in it, but i think it just involved coconut and pineapple juice- it was really nice. Still haven´t figured out why I didn´t have to pay though, I think other people were. Anyway, in Los Mochis I stayed overnight and then had to leave early for the airport for my flight to Puerto Vallarta via Mexico City. You´ll be pleased to hear that the connection in Mexico City went without a hitch, even though security didn´t like my boarding pass and sent me to get another one (I have no idea why). I got on the flight on time and thats all I cared about.
So Puerto Vallarta is where I am now, and wil be for 2 weeks. I´m taking spanish lessons and have the best home stay- but I´ll cover that in my next blog in a few days. Hope you´re all well. I´m going to try and upload the pics that go with this blog now, i´ll warn you, the cold means I have a lot more photos of scenery than people. Now take care of yourselves and write some nice messages on my message board please!
Sarah xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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