Riding El Chepe Express
Dispatch XXVI
A Vagabond’s Adventure. Continent # 1: North America
Boarding El Chepe Express
February 21, 2022 - Day 118
We were excited about boarding El Chepe Express. We had heard and read plenty about it. But getting our ticket and then getting on the train was work. It can be this way in Mexico. When we attempted to buy our tickets online while still in Baja, the Chepe website was a disaster even though we followed every rule (in Spanish) to the letter (perhaps this was the problem?). Finally I called FerroMex, El Chepe’s rail company, and after many entanglements with our misaligned languages managed to get an email that proved we had paid for our tickets. But did we actually HAVE a ticket? I wasn’t sure.
Nevertheless, here we were now in the city of Los Mochis, determined to board the train that the marketing brochures wrote would take us through “350 km (220 miles) [passing] Sinaloa up to Creel, into the heart of the Sierra Tarahumara, passing through the majestic Copper Canyon.” The trip would take 9 hours. We would rise 8,000 feet to the land of the Tarahumara people, famous for their ability to run extraordinary distances up and down the mountains. While researching my book Thumbs, Toes and Tears, I had learned that when hunting these native people could run deer down until the animals collapsed.
Arrival at the Train Station in Los Mochis (Photo - Chip Walter)
That morning, a glum taxi driver had juddered us through the dawn light grossly overcharging us before we and our bags were deposited outside the depot doors. It was cool and humid. Brooding clouds slowly crept across the sky. At 7:15 the Estacion opened. A man dressed smartly in a FerroMex uniform herded passengers with boletos (tickets) into one line, and everyone else in another. But which line did we belong in? We didn’t exactly have a ticket, but we had proof we had paid for one. The uniformed agent waved away our concerns. We would be fine; just board when we got the word. But a few minutes later the train’s conductor, in Spanglish, clarified that we did need tickets. Dutifully, I lined up while Cyn held the fort with our bags. Six people stood in front of us. Departure in 45 minutes. We waited. The line was moving at a glacial pace. Evil thoughts began to arise in my mind. We had come several hundred miles out of our way to board this train and didn’t want to miss it, and if we did we were pretty sure that getting our money back would be a nightmare. I fervently wished I was fluent in Spanish. Why couldn’t I make the sounds I needed to make to solve the problems I wanted to solve? The voice in my head spoke: Control what you can. Let the rest go.
A father with two boys and his wife was in the same boat as we were. He was Mexican, but had worked several years in Texas and spoke excellent English. He had paid for the ride and like us had the proof right there on his cell phone, but he too was told he needed tickets. Now it was 7:30 and a mere two people had moved down the line. The glacial pace, it turns out, was thanks to a FerroMex employee at the ticket counter who was regaling each buyer, in minute detail, about the train’s many amenities.
Our friend was thinking the same thoughts I was. He snagged another railway agent who looked to be in charge and urgently explained our situation. Yes, we still need tickets, she answered in Spanish. Our friend tilted his head in the direction of the ticket agent making the point that we can’t get tickets unless we get through the line before the train departs. She seemed unconcerned, but walked to the ticketmistress and told her to move things along. Six people have now joined the line behind us and four are still in front.
At 7:50 the family in front of us finally makes it to the counter. A pantomime unfolds. The father speaks to the ticket agent. Rapid Spanish ensues. He holds up his phone. More head waggling on both sides of the plexiglass. Tick-tock. I can feel things are getting heated. Now the man’s wife enters the picture. She offers the agent encouragement. Heads begin to nod. Finally the ticketmistress picks up the phone and a minute later she is printing their tickets. Done! I take solace in this. Now that this nice man and his wife have plowed the bureaucratic road for us surely Cyn and I will breeze through.
I step to the counter and show her the email on my phone.
“You must forward your email to to FerroMex,” she says in Spanglish, “and then they will issue her permission to print us a ticket. I jab a finger at my watch.
"No tiempo!” I say, voice rising.
Again, I thrust my phone up to the plexiglass and point at the 8400 pesos (about $500) noted in the email when the mother of the family in front of us re-enters the conversation, earnestly speaking through the plexiglass to the ticketmistress. I love her. In my mind I think of her as “The Virgin Mother of Los Mochis.” It's now 7:53. Seven minutes and the great Chepe will be gone.
Cyndy sits stoically 50 feet away beside our bags in the now empty train station. By now nearly everyone has boarded. The Mother of Los Mochis implores the agent in Spanish so rapid I cannot possibly comprehend it. Then suddenly, the wife turns, smiling and gives me a thumbs up.
"It's good!" She says.
“Muchas gracias!” I blurted. I wanted to embrace her. For every difficult human, there are always several good ones. An instant later we had our tickets in hand. I turned to thank the Virgin Mother, but she and her family had already disapparated. Was this a miracle?
Cyn and I wheeled away with our bags, tossed them to a waiting porter and bound onto the Premiere Class coach in search of our seats. We plopped down, and then with a bang, the engine of the mighty Chepe began to haul us out of the station precisely on time.
I grinned at Cyn. “After all of that,” I said, “this better be good!”
On Board
The train’s windows are broad, made to reveal the views. We watched its 12 cars pull us through an immense garbage dump. This didn’t look promising, but trains everywhere travel through the backsides of cities and the views are rarely stunning. We gathered speed and watched shanties fashioned from whatever people have been able to find — cardboard, plasterboard, tarps, plywood, plastic — parade by. White circular tubs stood outside, a flat square of dirt where people can wash. Little flags of plastic or cloth provide a morsel of privacy as the train slides by. Here and there skeletal corrals of old wood teeter in the dirt. A few chickens peck in the dust, an emaciated goat or two munches on tiny clusters of grass, while hand washed clothes hang languidly in the humid breeze and a single rooster patrols a little dirt yard, wings spread, squawking a clear message to all chickens that he is boss. I am reminded of John Steinbeck's descriptions in Grapes of Wrath of the shanty towns during the American Depression.
Shanties line El Chepe Express in Los Mochis … Apologies, the photos were taken through train windows. (Photo - Chip Walter)
A few moments more and I witnessed an image that will always remain with me: a solitary young man, maybe 21-years-old, tall, slim with dark hair, raggedly dressed. His paper COVID mask was strapped on his ears as he stood unmoving and unmoved amidst 100 yards of garbage and tumbling plastic bags, gazing blankly into the wreckage. What thoughts, I wondered was he thinking? What dreams did he dream? What dreams was he allowed to dream? And then the train moved on.
As we gathered speed the level of homes upgraded. Slowly the boarded slats and plywood houses we had been looking at morphed into small enclosed yards with porticos and cement walls and proper rooms capped with red corrugated roofs. Ranches began to appear as we came into the foothills, small brick buildings among scrub, rock, cactus, dry arroyos, dust and hard chunks of grass. A cowboy on his horse clopped through a flat plain of dry prairie grass, his battered straw hat swatting at a few horses and brahmin cows as he herded them into a nearby corral.
Crossing the plains - Miles of corn. (Photo - Chip Walter)
In time we broke into broad rows of corn filling the plains through which the train resolutely passed. Before the day was done, the train would haul us into canyons the guide books told us were five times the size of the Grand Canyon. It swayed left and right, but its progress was steady as we moved towards the beckoning Sierra Madre. I thought if there was one set of tracks that would be carefully maintained, it would be this one. The express was the most popular attraction in northern Mexico, and it brought tourists in by the hundreds of thousands each year. Now that COVID seemed to finally be abating, the income was deeply appreciated.
Climbing
El Chepe’s Premiere Class coach offered a startling counterpoint to the world through which the train passed. It was indeed first class, recently renovated we were told. Leather chairs throughout, brown leather cloth and metal scones for lighting, a linen like ceiling with more recessed lighting, tan with valances recalling the fine Spanish architecture of the old days, and an entire car devoted to anyone who wanted a drink in the first class section. In the bar car all of the big windows had been opened and the train now chugged up the mountains through fresh, cool air while the patrons helped themselves to drinks and had the party going strong by 10:30 am.
The interior of El Chepe’s Premiere Class coach, and the packed bar car. (Photos - Chip Walter)
In all of our experience in Mexico, we had never run into anyone who was unkind or the least bit bad-tempered. That changed on the Chepe. The surliest people that we came across were those riding in Premier class. Many of them considered themselves wealthy, entitled to be loud, rude, insistent on their constant care for the battalion of servers on board, seemingly unaware of the poverty around them or even feeling superior because of it. They would order drinks and food and toss away their trash and expect someone else to take care of it which the servers dutifully did. I wondered if sometimes I acted like this, being just as thoughtless, entirely unaware that I too was a jerk. If so I could only hope this trip would help humble me, help me realize how truly we are all in the same boat and at least deserve an equal shot. But everywhere it was so clear that so many did not get equal shots and yet they seemed to continue with a smile on their face, working hard, themselves humble and perfectly happy with the state of their lives. Had I been born into those circumstances, I wondered, would I feel the same?
Now the views of the river plain below became stunning. We crossed over one of the highest train trestles in the world, the river valley gaping hundreds of feet below. Onward El Chepe rocked, always higher; we rose amongst cliffs of hanging trees and flowers of vivid yellow, pink and periwinkle. We were leaving civilization. In time a broad snaking river appeared, tumbling out the mountains, the Septentrion, which means “going to the ocean.” It seemed to be in a hurry.
For a few hours the rails followed the channel the Septentrion had formed over the epochs. The higher we ascended green rather than brown became the color of choice - pine (Tule) and White Stick trees, Huisache and Jute bushes. The river became a chasm filled with rocks the size of small homes, igneous domes toppled from the ragged cliffs above.
Copper Canyon’s monolithic cliffs. (Photo - Chip Walter)
Despite rocking and rolling upward, a small battalion of waiters with perfect, gleaming teeth glided through the aisles carrying platters of snacks and wine, mojitos or tequila from one car to the next. The service was impeccable and we were often asked if we needed anything. Lunch would be served in the dining car around noon and we chose chicken soup with light Seminola and three small roasted pork chops in green sauce.
Higher … now the turns grew sharper, twisting the train into taut switchbacks, and El Chepe made every noise a machine could make, cracking, clapping and rattling, screeching and hissing on its beds, but it never wavered in its journey. Soon the canyon walls approached like closing, volcanic hands, sometimes no more than 10 feet from our window. Rail workers had had to blast through every one of the railway’s 27 bridges and 86 tunnels to take us on this route. It was truly one of the world’s great engineering feats. The idea for the railroad was inspired when Mexico granted a rail concession to Albert Kinsey Owen, founder of the Utopia Socialist Colony in New Harmony, Indiana. Owen’s goal was to build a socialist colony in Mexico and he needed a way to get people there. Owen’s dream didn’t come true, but Arthur Stilwell who ran a company called the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway began construction in 1900. The route was so rugged, so challenging that last rail wasn’t laid to its terminus in Chihuahua until 1961.
Now the train’s big blue engine began snaking us through fresh stands of pine, and as we approached late afternoon the train seemed to level off a bit. We didn’t see the immense canyon walls you see in the Grand Canyon, there are too many trees, but the canyons are there, and we would catch glimpses, thick with forest hanging along the immense ravines.
Tarahumara family working to make a living. (Photos - Chip Walter)
Fifteen minutes out of Divisadero, a favorite tourist stop on the route with Alpine-style restaurants and hotels dropped among the Sierra Tarahumara, the train slowed. From out of cluster of small homes a mother, teen daughter, little boy and even younger girl emerged like apparitions. I suspected they were Tarahumara; the mother and children were dressed in bright pink and deep blues. They ran desperately carrying brightly colored hand-made baskets of all kinds. I wanted to help, but couldn’t find a place to debark because the train moved continuously a few feet at a time perhaps to give these people a chance to sell some of their wares to the hundreds on the train. I finally remembered that in between the train cars there was a window. But would it open? I ran to it from our seats and found I could unlatch it. Immediately the family flocked to me, holding out their beautifully woven baskets. Cyn and I had no room for any gifts but I had 100 pesos in my pocket and handed it to the little boy running along side. He leapt with joy and showed me his wide, white teeth. Immediately his mother held out a variety of baskets.
“Regalo!” I called out. A gift and I waved my hand.
After I closed the window the train moved slowly away. Back in our plush seats, I wondered why is anyone this poor? I knew the stock answers. Political corruption, skewered capitalism, poor education … but those answers still begged the question: Why had this family been dealt these cards and why had I been so fortunate? It wasn’t as though I had earned my good fortune any more than this family deserved the cards they were dealt. The simple luck of a grand lottery placed me in the United States, white and entitled with a far bigger shot at success than these folks. The same lottery had placed this hardworking mother and her children on these tracks in the middle of Mexico’s mountains and there wasn’t much they could do about it but make these baskets, and hope.
Creel
When we arrived in Creel, our final destination, it was a chilly 47°. The sun would soon set among a sky of scuttling white clouds. When the train clattered to a halt, people poured in droves from its coaches. Of the 12 cars, only a handful were Premiere class. The rest were second and third class. Cyn and I debarked but the narrow depot left no room for egress or ingress or progress. Cyn held her ground and I battled my way through the crush to the baggage area, hauled the bags onto our backs and began to head we knew not where.
We were looking to find our hotel, the Villa Mexicana, but had no idea where it was or how to get there. Cell signals are in short supply in the land of the Tarahumara. I figured somewhere we would find a local taxi and figure things out. Then among the throng, I saw one man with a baseball cap hold a sign aloft: “Villa Mexicana.” I waved to him and he gestured toward a kind of parking lot, and headed that way. We were still stuck, but finally we broke out onto battered cement steps and found the man – Xavier, slim and whiskered with soulful eyes, and we followed him to a serviceable white van with four others already inside. Just dumb luck. Xavier rammed the clutch into reverse and soon we were on our way. In the low light, off to the right, I saw El Chepe Express sitting on its rails and gave it a salute.
Next up: A series of Dispatches on Morocco.
See you somewhere soon. In the meantime, crack on!
Your Vagabonds,
C-Squared
This is a series about a Vagabond’s Adventures - author and National Geographic Explorer Chip Walter and his wife Cyndy’s effort to capture their experience exploring all seven continents, all seven seas and 100+ countries, never traveling by jet.
As of this Dispatch …
We have travelled 1,100 miles, across four ferries, on nine trains, visiting five World Heritage Sites, through 21 states, 13 National Parks and monuments and three countries, in 53 different beds, and run through more keys than a grand piano.
If you’ve enjoyed this adventure, please take a look at Chip’s other adventures (and misadventures), that you can read through Dispatches like this one … and don’t forget to check the Vagabond Journal for summaries and recommendations of our journey as we move day-by-day through the planet.
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Recommendations
If you’re heading to Mexico or you’re shopping for ideas for your next excursion, we wanted to share our recommendations. Feel free to leave your own suggestions too in the comments below! We want the thousands of other vagabonds who have joined us to know about the places you’ve explored and about your own experiences in Mexico (or anywhere in the world, for that matter). Here you go …
Chepe Express - Of course! The train runs from Los Mochis to Creel, through the majestic Copper Canyon, with stops at El Fuerte, Bahuichivo, and Divisadero. The railway offers several different touring options on this route to satisfy your own adventurous spirit. With COVID behind us, I suspect your experience will be a little less distracting than ours :-).
Villa Mexicana, Copper Canyon Lodge. Creel, Chihuahua. Our stop at the end of a long day. It surpassed expectations nevertheless! Check it out!