HOUR 1 – 07:00
The train leaves at time, and although there are other tourists onboard, I am the only extranjero going as far as Chihuahua. The train rolls slowly passed ramshackle houses built on the side of the dustry track. As we pass underfed horses and chickens, women stand in the early sun hosing things with water whilst men with moustaches lean against walls with their thumbs hooked in the belt hooks of their denim jeans, doing nothing. In the distance in front of us, large hills loom in the morning mist.
HOUR 2 – 08:00
The train picks up speed as we enter the countryside through fields of corn, long grass and cactus. The hills are already getting closer, and the morning Sinaloan sun has already started to burn off the mist by the time we arrive art the first train station stop in El Fuerte.
Someone in the carriage is playing traditional Mexican music on a radio, and although I don’t understand many of the words, some Mexican passengers are already singing and adding to the mood of anticipation for my journey through the Copper Canyon. Other thin tracks appear and disappear every so often without going anywhere. As we head steadily onwards, a sad looking donkey tried to a post reflects on its plight as jack-rabbits jump and the sun (and train) becomes hotter.
HOUR 3 – 09:00
Cows are already sheltering in the shade of a tree as the trani driver announces our arrival in a town with a station with another loud blast of his horn. The fields have cleared to semi-desert prairie, and the air-conditioning has come back on in the carriage just in time.
HOUR 4 – 10:00
The cactus grow as tall as the trees on the hills now, and these trees as not shirking in size. We are back in the country again, where the derelict buildings and disrepaired telephone poles by the trackside lie testament to place where nobody lives. Ahead, a lone cowboy in denims and stetson canters on a horse on the dusty road, before we cross our first bridge of the day, over a dried out river that looks like it hasn't run in a very long time. The hills are starting to close in on either side of us now, and as we pick up some cowboys in Loreto, it starts to feel like Canyon country will soon be upon us. Is a long burst of the train horn the drivers way of letting them know we are coming?
HOUR 5 - 11:00
The railway line leads us higher as a large bird soars in the sky overhead. I hang over a train carriage door taking my first photos of the day. The door opens inwards, but I grip the rail inside with white knuckles all the same.
As we head through dark tunnels, hug the mountains around deep ravines and cross bridges over lagoons of crystalline green water, I see the skull of a cow by the side of the tracks. Sharp branches shooting past as I continue taking photos remind me not to lean out from the train too far or I could be next.
HOUR 6 - 12:00
Every sheer cliff face seems higher than the last, but like the landscape in Mexico City, none of my photographs do their size justice. The friendly Mexican I am sitting next to tells me there are more impressive vistas to come. This is his first time on the train as well, but someone in Chihuahua has told him it gets better in the early afternoon.
Equally impressive are the bridges and tunnels that carry our train through this impassable terrain. As we pass through Temoris, I wonder to myself how many Mexicans died making this journey a reality. And still we go higher, sometimes above the birds, soaring.
HOUR 7 - 13:00
There are houses only occassionally now, lived-in but run-down, and with no luxuries such as electricity or running water. The landscape changes again and again, from desert to lush mountainside filled with conifers. But I have long given up on trying to get even one photo that does the landscape justice, so instead enjoy the air-conditioned view from my carriage, chatting to the friendly Mexican beside me as we pass through the town of Banuchivo.
HOUR 8 - 14:00
Spectacular landscapes continue, but the Mexican in white leather shoes sitting nearby continues to sleep through it all. The train is sometimes at the canyon bottom, but most of the time it clings to the hillside halfway up. A young Mexican girl sitting nearby spots the lone extranjerro in the carriage for the first time, and stares with her mouth open as she clings to her mother.
We should be in Creel in a couple of hours, where some of the most beautiful scenery is said to be.
HOUR 9 - 15:00
The train stops at Divisadero for 15 minutes, allowing passengers time to get off the train for some spectacular photos out over the canyon rim, and to stock up on delicious 'gorditos de masa azul' at the market next to the station.
HOUR 10 - 16:00
The train is busier after Divisadero, and carriage doors are more difficult to obtain as many Mexicans on the train also want to enjoy the views. An extranjero manages to find a space by lingering behind the locals looking out it until they eventually get the message and go back to their seats. And so I am back at the windowless carriage door with the one-inch thick waist high metal door my only saviour from death as the train presses on towards Creel.
HOUR 11 - 17:00
Hanging from a train door window is calming, no matter how many tree branches nearly take off your head. No matter how much you lean out you can never quite see where you are heading, however you do get an excellent view of where you are not.
HOUR 12 - 18:00
The canyon widens after Creel, where we do not stop and no really impressive scenery can be seen from the train. However, Creel is the first town since Los Mochis with several hotels, satellite dishes and an internet cafe, suggesting something special is definitely hiding nearby.
HOUR 13 - 19:00
Time rolls by quickly on the Pacific train from Los Mochis to Chihuahua, and it is now already 12 hours since my journey began this morning. The rain that has fallen almost every night since I arrived in Mexico has just fallen, and as the land flattens out and the sun slowly sinks west, I have a sense that the Copper Canyon is over.
With the pink sky behind us and only darkness ahead, pheasants rise from ploughed fields and swallows fly from their perches on poles as our train approaches La Coolta on its way to Chihuahua.
HOUR 14:00 - 20:00
The Mexican in the white leather shoes that has slept through the entire journey and whom I have not seen move from his seat in twelve hours is awake now there is only darkness to see out the window.
I still have a few hours of my train journey left, but I know I won'f find sleep quite as easily. Of course I won't sleep. The air-conditioning is cold but I have my woolen poncho and sleeping bag that is comfortable to -7 degrees to keep me warm if I need them. My train seat is comfortable and I am sitting next to a friendly Mexican whom I still don't know the name of after 13 hours of intermitten conversation, but who is not taking up my legroom or listening to loud gothic music either. But I still won't sleep on the Pacific train as it heads for Chihuahua. I won't sleep because there are no barriers at any of the level crossings we pass through, and so the train driver sounds his horn loudly as the train approaches to alert road motorists of our presence and right of way.
I won't sleep but I won't write any more either.
THE END
Prologue: I never did find out the name of the friendly Mexican. Nor did I get any sleep.
