ELE JOU: EL CHEPE into the Canyons, part 2

(warning - none of the pictures below really do justice to the phenomenal vistas of the Barrancas del Cobre seen from the train. please treat them as pale facsimiles, placeholders for what you might see through your own astonished eyeballs...)

all photos get LARGE when clicked


El Fuerte river, early morning


El Chepe arriving at the station


bathroom window pattern


emerald waters made by repressa (dam)




distant peaks


indigenous women selling baskets


glorious basket clutch


looking back

leaving early from El Fuerte in order to catch the train, the light coming off the river is spectacular. hundreds of birds are busy eating, flying, fighting, singing, as we load our bags into a thoroughly non-dangerous taxi to make the 20 minute journey to the station.

the sky is an unblemished blue and the train arrives looking incredibly shiny and thoroughly impressive - green, black, and orange like a flag. officially called Ferrocarril Chihuahua-Pacífico, it is affectionately known as EL CHEPE (based on the abbreviation CHP).

the project to connect the mountainous region of central mexico with the pacific coast was begun in the early 1900s and took 60 years to complete. it was abandoned many times during construction in part because of the extraordinarily complex engineering required for trestle tracks spanning 8000 VERTICAL feet.
and, yes, virginia, there are some HAIR-RAISING SWITCHBACKS, LOOPS, and OVERHANGS!
(fyi, the original railway concession was granted in 1880 to an AMERICAN named Albert Kinsey Owen who came from a UTOPIAN COMMUNITY the remains of which i visited some years ago in Harmony, Indiana thanks to Marg Herder...)

we'd chosen 1st class for several reasons, among them fewer stops and a more reliable time schedule. apparently, with each stop, the 2nd class train becomes later and later so the proposed EIGHT HOURS to Creel, our destination, easily stretches into 12 hours and frankly, 8 hours onboard seemed like PLENTY to us.

once on the train we find another VERY compelling reason for 1st class: a cafe car with ENORMOUS unobstructed windows and no time limit for sitting without purchase. our learning curve is immediate - drape jackets over our assigned seats then make a beeline for the cafe car where we commandeer a formica table and spend the whole journey eating from our bags of snacks and gawking views. the ONLY reason to leave is to stand on the platform BETWEEN cars where we can hang out the big windows with the wind crashing through our hair. from here, rocks and trees are close enough to touch and the dazzling landscapes of pinnacles, hoodoos, rivers, lakes and canyons play hide and seek around corners and through tunnels until we reach a trestle bridge and the whole damn expanse is suddenly visible. devastating heart-stopping beauty. beyond rugged, thousands of acres never inhabited or explored. truly wild.

during a fueling stop at San Rafael, we have our first exposure to the legendarily shy Rarámuri, the indigenous people who've lived in these mountains forever but retreated to the canyons after the Spanish came in the 1600s and declared them heathens in need of conversion. (the Spanish named them Tarahumara which means "those who run fast" which, indeed, they do. the word Rarámuri, according to our guide, means, simply, "the People"). a gaggle of women and girls flood the tracks offering to sell intricate baskets woven from pine needles for ridiculously low prices. it's like being a neophyte at an auction - giddy, i buy three before i even know what i'm doing. they are all dressed in wildly bright and busy colors and patterns and, to a woman, the skirts and blouses do not match. this is my kind of cacaphony.

meanwhile Andrew has the map of the Copper Canyon that i sent away for with information about the people and the region. it includes a tiny lexicon of words in three languages - English, Spanish and Rarámuri - and he's attempting to say HELLO:
cuira va!
i join in - cuira va!

we elicit a few half-smiles but no real enthusiasm to converse. this remains true in every encounter with Rarámuri people with the exception of two young girls who follow us some days later at the Cusarare Waterfall...