Day 7 – Copper Canyon

3/24/2006 – Day 7 – Copper Canyon

Its morning and we have had our breakfast and now we are waiting for our ride to the train.  Carmen and I get a last picture in the hotel where we are together in the frame. 

We get to the train station, well what they call a train station, and while we are waiting for the train to arrive I check out the equipment parked along the rails.  This appears to be an automatic rail layer.

As we begin our journey on the train, we see this rancher herding his horse, mule, and cattle.

We pass many Organ Pipe cactus and this is one of the nicest and one that isn’t covered by other vegetation.  This one looks ready to flower.

As we travel along the river and approach the mountains, we begin to move up in elevation.  Up ahead is one of the 37 bridges we will cross. 

To gain altitude, we are have had to use switchbacks.  Some of the scenery we are seeing is now in reverse and was behind us on our way to El Fuerte 

The mountains here are very rugged, with what seem to be steep limestone cliffs. 

Here we are just entering a tunnel.  You can see by the plaque it is tunnel number 71, of the 86 tunnels along the track, and is 176 meters long.  We are counting the tunnels backwards already passing through 15 tunnels.  Notice I am not the only one taking pictures of the train going into the tunnel.

After passing several switchbacks to gain elevation, we are nearly at the top of this section of track.  We began in El Fuerte at about 350 meters and now we are around 1800 meters.  Along the side of the train tracks is this notice that tells the story of the construction and commemorated to the 50^th anniversary of the revolution.

The rail line took almost 90 years to complete and over $90 million (1960 US dollars) or 743 million pesos.  It is no wonder that it took so long building a rail line and how difficult it was build through terrain like this. 

After a number of switchbacks to gain elevation, we get up to where we have an open view back along our path.  You can see the bridge we used to cross the river below.  We have gained a bit of elevation in a relatively short amount of time.

The train stops at Bauichivo (I think) and once again I get a picture of the Federal Police guarding our train car.  You can clearly see the rifle this federal officer has. 

While we are waiting for passengers to get off and on, we again have a number of women hawking their woven baskets.  This woman is clearly in her late years and is still peddling her baskets.

Once someone on the train buys a basket, many others come to show their baskets to sell.  Here four women crowd the window where some in our group are looking to buy a basket.  Not sure who the young boys are, but there have been young boys around most of the women selling baskets.

Again, we are traveling the rails and back to viewing the scenery. 

Remember when we were in Creel and I mentioned we saw flat bed cars waiting to load motor homes?  Well, here are some of those loaded flatbed cars now.  Notice this first flatbed.  The car, normally towed behind the motor home is loaded first.  One of the owners is sitting in a lawn chair watching the scenery go by. 

We arrive at our next stop, which happens to be our hotel for tonight.  Heading up the steps leading to the hotel lobby there are several Tarahumara Indian women weaving baskets and selling their inventory. 

After getting the keys to our room, we head along the outside corridor to our room. 

Quickly dropping our stuff in the room we head down to one of the banquet rooms for a basket weaving demonstration by several of the Tarahumara women. 

Each of the women weaves a different size basket with varying patterns.  This is one of the baskets partially completed to show the work of the weaver being passed around.  You can see the pattern of the narrow and wider sotol leaves cut in 1/16 and ½ inch strips.

Following our basket weaving demonstration, we head to our room to freshen up before dinner.  We finely get a chance to look where our room is located.  Looking out of the balcony attached to our room, this is looking west. 

Looking left from the balcony there is a cliff with what looks like a Tarahumara Indian village at the base.  There is a path from just around the hotel to the village and if we have time we’ll try to go.  You can see the canyon beyond the village as it continues north.

With a little bit of time before dinner we decided to take the trail along the canyon rim.  As we walk just below the rim, we can see many rock formations such as these rocks.

Near the end of our hike before turning back, we came upon this construction.  It looks like someone is making a small dwelling on top of this rock and the only way up is this roughly cut ladder. I tried to go up the ladder, but it was a little wobbly and I need to finish our trip – pun intended.

As we make our way back, we have a full view of the cliff where the Tarahumara Indian village is located.  To get a good understanding of the size, you can see several people just to the left of the large building in the center.  That make the cliff about 70 – 80 feet tall, or more, just to the building in the center.

Well after dinner I guess we have plenty of time or at least plenty of daylight.  So we are heading down the trail to the village.  We first see several huts along the path as we get close and I can now see the huts we saw from the room.

We must be here on laundry day.  All of the washers and dryers are taken. 

As we walk through the village, I see this man playing a fiddle.  The fiddle looks like he might have made it.

I saw this woman standing next to her house.  I did not want to be too obtrusive so I took the picture from my waist.  After straightening the picture this is what I have. 

Walking back up the hill, we can see the hotel.  We are in one of the rooms to the far left.

We get more views of the canyon as we work our way back up to the hotel.

Flowers along the path back to our hotel.

A homestead appears out on one of the outcroppings.  Quite a view from the back yard wouldn’t you say?

Before arriving back at the hotel, we get our last view of the canyon.  The sun seems to set late here and when he sun sets, it will get dark quickly.  Tomorrow we get back on the train and ride to the city of Chihuahua.