The Copper Canyon

The Copper Canyon and its railway are one of the 'must sees' of Mexico. The Canyon is in the north of the country and our early morning flight took 90 minutes to reach the airport of Los Mochis on the Pacific coast. There was a sea mist, so we had to circle the airport for 30 minutes before we could land! From the air it looked as though they had built the airport in the middle of a marsh! It was hot when we landed at 8.30am! The Copper Canyon railway starts in Los Mochis, but we were going to pick the train up at its second stop, a littleColonial town called El Fuerte, just before the railway starts to climb into the mountains.

With a typical Plaza des Armes, complete with bandstand,

and narrow cobbbled streets.

An ancient fort, with an interesting museum inside...... and the central construction doubled up as the water reserve for the town - ingenious!

Although in the middle of a desert a huge river runs through the town.

By ten  am it was stinking hot and the river looked cool. In the shrub are rare birds, there was a group of bird watchers staying in our hotel with cameras the size of cannons!

This is Cowboy country.

 How aboout snakeskin boots!

The next day we were excited at going on one of the worlds greatest train journeys.

The  engine was huge.

We passed through scrubby desert for a while.

The line was dead straight!

 The first bridge was pretty long over  a river.

We stopped at a small station to let someone off.

and continued on our way.

We started to climb. The Copper Canyon Railway has 36  bridges, 87  tunnels and climbs to over 3,000m! The section we were taking was the middle section of 150kms from El Fuerte to Creel. It was the most spectacular.

Passing over pretty precarious bridges.

We were reflected in the water below!

At one point we had to crawl over onto the service track to let the repair gang through.

Up and up we went,

just passing through the tunnels.

Seeing where we had been far below us.

The line clung to the sides of the hills, at times it was difficult to see where we were going next.

Half way we stopped at a station, where the local people came to sell us baskets.

We passed a train going the other way.

And eventually arrived in Creel, the gateway to The Copper Canyon itself.

The town itself is a very small and lives by the trains coming through and the tourists who stop here to go to The Copper Canyon and the surrounding countryside. Is a wild place, there is hiking here. But no marked trails, it is advisable to take a  local with you!