Traveling the Copper Canyons of Northern Mexico (Las Barrancas de Cobre)
The Copper Canyons, or Barrancas de Cobre, in northern Mexico, are five or six times greater in extent than the Grand Canyon – and closer to El Paso! An extraordinary train takes you down the spine of the canyons. By far the easiest and best way to do this is to arrange your travel through an agency that is experienced in Copper Canyon travel – at least the first time. * The benefit of not doing it yourself appeared when we had to re-organize our hotel stops, as the result of the Pacific hurricane Henriette, which left a lot of mudslides on the western end of the route, and the travel agency did it for us, painlessly.
Our party of five headed for Chihuahua on a very good toll road – the only road from Juárez to Chihuahua City. Chihuahua City is about the same size as El Paso, but seems very different, partly because there is no companion city twice as large (and partly because it is a “real” Mexican city, not a border city). Our hotel was on the outskirts and easy to find – and offered the advantage of allowing you to leave your car during the week’s trip. It would also be enjoyable to stay in the inn next to the cathedral (18th century baroque) and the plaza (lots of kids, statues of Chihuahua dogs in various costumes, and four shoeshine pavilions!). The city has many good restaurants, and dining there was a pleasure.
At 0 –dark-30 the next morning the alarm sounded the beginning of the trip - we had to be ready to leave the hotel at 5:15 for the 6 am departure of the “Chepe,” the Chihuahua al Pacifico railroad that runs from the border at Presidio/Ojinaga (freight only to Chihuahua) and on to Los Mochis on the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a marvel of engineering with 80-plus tunnels, loops where the train crosses over itself, tunnels that are almost complete circles, and a drop from 8000 feet to 300 feet, crossing many climate and environment zones. The first daylight hours from Chihuahua cover rolling country – some commentary finds it boring, but in fact it seemed very attractive to us, perhaps because the green was a nice contrast to the desert environment where we live. Much of this landscape is fruit orchards, managed by Mennonite settlers who arrived in the early 20th century.
After a fine breakfast in the dining car (the food on the Chepe is excellent – try the breakfast dishes “chilorio” style, with shredded pork and chiles), mid-morning the train reached Creel, the “official” beginning of canyon country. Seen from the train, Creel was not very pretty - indeed, rather ugly – but it is the center of many treks by foot, mule, or van, into the canyons. Many Copper Canyon visitors start in Creel and leave their cars at the Best Western Hotel and Spa. From Creel the train passes through increasingly mountainous terrain until Divisadero, an hour later. Here the train pauses for 15 minutes to allow passengers to descend to an overlook, from which they can first understand the size and beauty of the canyons – and also shop in the dozens of stalls where the indigenous people of the canyons, the Tarahumara (or Raramuri) Indians sell their crafts. The engineer blew the whistle and most of us managed to get back on board before the train started to move out, but one other passenger had to sprint to catch up! (It’s important not to be left behind, as there is only one first-class train per day.) A few miles further on we debarked at Posada Barrancas, right on the rim of a large stretch of the canyons. A truck and van met us to take our luggage and ourselves, respectively, the half-mile down a very rutted road to a spectacular inn overlooking the canyons. Every room had a balcony and a fireplace. At the front door was (a) instant access to trails, and (b) fine handcrafts, with Tarahumara women weaving baskets while you watched. On the walks around the hotel you could see a wonderful array of flowering plants and their attendant butterflies and birds. The hotel was set up for groups –that seemed to be the norm in the canyons, as most visitors arrive in bunches – with long tables in the dining room. Happily we were the only people in the hotel the second night (the result of skewed travel schedules following the hurricane). Just outside the dining room was a row of hummingbird feeders, and the bird life was rambunctious. Among others we saw magnificent hummingbirds and white-eared hummingbirds,
We were sorry to leave this beautiful place, and in many respects for me it was the high point of the trip (and literally it was, standing about the same altitude as Santa Fe). On our last night, there was a magnificent sound-and-light show as a huge storm swept across the canyons toward the hotel, pouring rain on us for some time, and then moving on; in the middle of the night the sky was filled with lightning strikes, far enough away that there was no thunder. Whether this was part of Henriette, or just the end of the rainy season, we never knew.
The hotel staff was very attentive, and the food was excellent – including the fish, which one might not expect hundreds of miles from any kind of sea. That is apparently part of Mexico’s Spanish heritage, as any tiny village in the interior of Spain will have a source of fresh seafood; one of the Spanish kings arranged things that way three hundred years ago. There was plenty of wine as well as margaritas – elsewhere in the canyons the Baldarrama Hotel group has vineyards that produce very nice table wine for all its hotels. This was not “roughing it!”
At the Posada Barrancas train stop (sporting a ramble-shackle building without any services) there were several Tarahumara Indian women selling crafts – dressed in chartreuse, fuchsia, turquoise, and other hues not possible to make by traditional dyes. Everywhere we stopped the indigenous dress featured these strong colors – and we wondered, how did the women manage until they got access to these commercial colors and fabrics?
From Barrancas to El Fuerte, the western end of our trip, the rail line drops about 7000 feet, and as it does the vegetation changes, ending in a luxurious riot of vines/climbing over almost invisible trees. Stepping off the over-cooled train was like being slapped in the face with a wet towel – (living in El Paso, I had almost forgotten about warm and humid!) The outskirts of the town looked rather awful, but the center was lively and interesting – and dated to 1564. The hotel was originally a grand house, on the site of the birthplace of Zorro; today it has an outdoor pool and bar, and many beautiful rooms surrounding gardens in the patio. We only stopped for one night, barely twelve hours, but decided we’d like to have spent a day exploring the town and relaxing by the pool – in the right season – there are several months without any rain to speak of and moderate temperatures. El Fuerte is also a major birding center. We ate extremely well here, especially the seafood…a shrimp cocktail and salad is more than enough for dinner, but the langoustinos were just too tempting! (Unlike at the Posada, where the menus were a fixed meal and included in our travel package, here we chose from a lengthy list of dishes in the restaurant and paid separately for this meal.)
And so – back to the train in the early morning. During the 30-minute wait for its arrival we watched locals wandering up and down the tracks with wheelbarrows; dogs ambled about on the tracks – apparently everyone in town knew when the train would arrive except us. (The tour arrangers will deliver you long before time, perhaps as the result of some previous early arrival, but just relax, there’s nothing to do but wait.) The return trip runs through the main engineering wonders – and some fascinating scenery as lush semi-tropical foliage gives way to a mixed landscape, with huge columnar cactus looking more like trees) and then to alpine forest. The plant life is astonishing in every stop. Most of the canyons have not been formally studied, but those few that have show several thousands of plant species. This is probably another area of the globe that we will learn to appreciate only when it is just about gone.
We broke for our last stay at Bahuichivo, where our guide met us for the drive to Cerocachui, a village within the canyons. Our hotel here was the Misión, named after the Jesuit mission that founded the town more than four centuries ago. Today’s village is pretty basic, but extraordinary treks can be arranged from here – by mule, for example, practically straight down the side of the mountain to the canyon floor, and on to Batopilas. Batopilas is a near-tropical town that amazingly was the second place in Mexico to get electric lighting - after Mexico City - thanks to its mining importance. (The founder arranged for a grand piano, weighing nearly 1000 pounds in its wooden crate, to be carried by teams of Tarahumara Indians, down the canyons to the bottom, some 185 miles away.) Cerocahui is also the site of the vineyards that the wine for the Baldarrama hotels. Again, we had excellent food, including sea bass brought up from El Fuerte. (The owner of the Baldarrama chain is committed to fine lodging within the Canyons, and we were very impressed by what it was possible to create in these remote places.
Although we were not ready for mule rides, two of our five-some did go out on horseback treks. The travel package included a trip out to the “Mirador del Gallego” on the Mesa de Arturo, which had spectacular views of the valley floor thousands of feet below. Following that the more determined members of the party proceeded to a three-hour hike to a waterfall, interrupted by several rain showers – as we learned the next day, the nice weather was coming to an end. My principal memory of the town was the hoarse bellow of the rooster at 4 am both mornings. Earplugs are recommended for light sleepers!
On the final railway leg of the trip two of us decided we needed more of the beautiful little Tarahumara baskets, which had not been offered for sale at El Fuerte or Cerocahui. So we descended at Divisadero for the market - just as the skies opened. By the time I completed my purchase (in under 10 minutes) my trousers were soaked to the hips. Fortunately the rest of the group had headed for the dining car and was not around to photograph the scene. But the baskets were worth it! They are finely made, and when bought directly from the maker you can be sure there is no middleman.
And so we arrived in Chihuahua…damp but happy. The return to El Paso was uneventful, and we were extremely lucky in having only a wait of 45 minutes on the bridge in Juárez, as it is not uncommon these days to sit in fumes for over an hour – about the only negative aspect of land travel into Mexico.
* We were very pleased with the help we got from Bryan Ruiz at Pan American Tours in El Paso; Bryan has many years of experience and the prices were extremely reasonable – contact him at 915-778-5395, or panam@htg.net