December 20 Chihuahua to Creel

I began to slowly open my eyes as we rolled through the outskirts of Chihuahua. We crowded off the bus around 3:30am and decided to hang out in the Centro de Autobuses for an hour before catching a taxi to the train station, where breakfast is served on the platform beginning at 6:00am. We passed the time wandering the deserted streets, while a lone guard kept watch high atop an imposing state prison. With several breakfast tacos in hand, we rolled out of the train station at 7:30am and circled around the dusty barrios of Ciudad Chihuahua. Our $12 first class ticket ensured few stops as we passed by Mennonite farms near Cuauhtémoc and entered the foothills of the Sierra Madre. We arrived in Creel, the gateway to Copper Canyon, around 2:30pm. Children yelling "Margarita's! - Margarita's!" led us by the hand to our usual hostel, Margarita's Casa de Huéspedes. We would only be in the retiring lumber town one night to tell people where we were going and to see if anyone would advise against it, for news or recent fires, robberies, draught or rock slides. At Margarita's dinner table, the center of social activity for turistas, we met Jim from Austin, who was eager to hike and, more importantly, he had a map. NEXT PAGE