December 21 Creel to Bahuichivo to Urique

The next leg of our railroad adventure took us over high trestles and through deep tunnels. Locals bragged of the greatness of Mexico, and enjoyed tortas and cerveza with us on the open-air deck between cars, where we looked down into rivers hundreds of feet below the rails. The formidable Sierra Madre certainly contributed to Mexico's greatness and independence, and the building of the Chihuahua al Pacifico railroad over these mountains was an amazing achievement. The Divisidero stop gave us a few minutes to buy chile rellenos, cooked near the tracks on 55-gallon steel drums. For many outsiders, the spectacular vista beyond the Indian market is as close as they will come to Copper Canyon. Down the line, the San Rafael freight yard was covered in black soot and pools of leaked petroleum. Mexican women in stark white dresses slowly tiptoed across the tracks, being careful to keep the fine lace details of their Sunday apparel off the oil-stained surface. Such impractical behavior attracted the attention of many brightly-clad Tarahumaras, who watched the debutantes intently from hiding places between box cars. Tarahumara children hurried to the train, wearing sandals made from tire treads, to advertise their wares to the passengers. At the Bahuichivo train station we hired a pickup to take us to the end of the road more than 7,000 feet below in the Barranca de Urique, where the deeply gorged Copper Canyon makes its exodus to the Pacific. We rolled over steep hills to the Spanish settlement of Cerocahui, founded in the late sixteenth century to Christianize Indians that had fled into the rugged mountains to escape Spanish slave raiders. We couldn't get enough of the spectacular vistas and we watched for hours as the sun set over the ridge behind us. The tiny lights of Urique appeared at the bottom as darkness filled the great canyon. To the sound of grinding gears and screeching brakes, the old truck hauled the five of us and two local men, with a family in the cab, down the steep road and around tight switchbacks into a new climate zone influenced by the warm Pacific Ocean. We arrived to find the town quiet and empty. We wandered the streets alone and finally discovered everyone crowded inside a concrete building, with the overflow peering in through open windows, to watch the popular Mexican soap, "Dos Mujeres, Un Camino." At 10:00pm, the credits rolled and the plug was pulled, not just on the TV, but on the town generator. Men with pistoleros stuck in their pants wandered off and the owners resumed serving food and Tarahumara corn beer, thick with yeast floating on top. Even the Carta Blanca served by candlelight tasted extra rich on an extraordinarily hot December night. The temperature seemed to increase with each passing minute as we tried desperately to get some sleep before the serious work of the canyon crossing began. The deceptively quiet town proved to be a lively place by 2:00am when the sweltering heat was joined by gunfire, firecrackers, truck motors and barking dogs as the most impressive obstacle to my sleep ever put forth. NEXT PAGE