B.Y.O.T.V.

Here's where we spent our first night, or really half night, in Chihuahua. In my opinion this place gets the dumpiest room award. Arrived last night at about 1am. It's right across the street from the train station. They do have good huevos rancheros though.
Which is to say we made it to Chihuahua. We called the train station later on wednesday and they said all was normal. I didn't really believe them though so we had to check some other sources, and sure enough they all checked out. So another early morning, this time with enough time to buy some street pancakes and atole, which I don't really know what it is but it's good.
Got to the station and passed throught the (apparently optional since we decided to not get searched) security and onto the train.

The train ride is really as amazing as they say. The best part is that you can hang out in the areas between the cars and hang out the big oipen windows. You can even accidentally open the doors (oops). There are 86 tunnels along the way and at least 15 wrecked train cars (that's as many as I counted but I know I didn't see them all) laying off to the side of the tracks, usually down at the bottom of steep gullies, cliffs, in rivers or right below big bridges (below).

Now we're in Chihuahua, which I like so far. Fairly quiet compared to some cities we've been to. It's also in the desert so it's always windy and the coldest place we've been so far, it's actually really cold. I'm looking forward to our last couple days of the trip before we head up to Texas, then home.

El Chepe

This is a picture of "El Chepe" aka the Copper Canyon Train, which we got up at 5:30am today to catch. What you can't see with the naked eye is that this train is actually going backwards (!!). That's because of this...

...or this is what I can only assume it looks like. An hour into our journey the conductor announced malas noticias and said we had to return to the station and maybe we would try again tomorrow, or another day, they really don't know. All they know is that there was a landslide because of heavy rains. I thought we were going to miss out on all the nasty rain back at home but I guess it found us here.

So we're stuck in a town called Los Mochis. I can't say it's my favorite town but at least they sell churros on every other street corner, and on the other corners they sell pancakes. But that's about it for positive comments. So the options are to wait an indefinite amount of time for the tracks to be cleared and maybe repaired or take a detour that could take up to 3 days, be expensive and not involve a cool train ride. Unfortunately we don't have time on our side since we have to be in El Paso by next monday. Hmm...

So we're here for at least one night because we didn't want to get on a bus today. Hopefully tomorrow they'll at least know how long it might take to clear. My guess is we'll end up on the bus.

Oh well.

Here are some pictures of Mazatlán. A Clamatto stand (Clamateria). There we're quite a few of these, can't say we visited any.

And here is a picture of the two of us.

Regresamos a la playa

Guanajuato to Guadalajara. Not a huge fan of Guadalajara, just another big city.
Guadalajara to Mazatlán. I like Mazatlán, at least the old part. Nice to be back at the coast. Hot here but nothing like the southern coast. It's not humid here, which is really nice. There is an "El Shrimp Bucket" which reminds me of Cabo, however, eating there is a bit out of our price range. We usually go for street potatoes and horchata.

From here it's north to Los Mochis to catch the Copper Canyon Train to Chihuahua. With some stops along the way I assume since we still have a week to go.

Now to the beach to build sand castles!

Guanajuato

On Sunday we left Mexico City for good and caught a bus to Guanajuato, about 5 hours to the northwest. Guanajuato is and old silver mining city that was built in the middle of a bunch of big hills. Nothing here is flat or straight. There isn't a single square block in the city and the buildings are literally built on top of each other as they climb up the steep hills leaving the main center. One can either walk up and down the main street in the center or climb a steep hill. The pictures really don't do it justice. There are actuall very few roads for cars to drive on to get up the hills. Most people walk up narrow paths and stairways between all the buildings. It's like a maze, you just find a narrow opening between two buildings and start climbing. Some dead end and some go through. When it's windy the wind rips throught these walkways like you're in a narrow canyon, which you are. This place actually reminds me of scrambling around the rocks and canyons in Joshua Tree National Park.

Since the roads are so narrow and there are many cars they built underground roadways to
accomodate all the traffic (pictured below). The city has like 30 tunnels or something going under the main downtown area and under all the hills. and they have sidewalks through them. It's where you have to go to catch the bus. And they look like they're about 150 years old, which they probably are. From what I've seem I'd say this is about the most beautiful city I've seem in Mexico. although not the best for accomodations. We just moved hotels today from a gross, dirty room with a sink that didn't drain (and when it finally did drain it just leaked all over the floor making a huge puddle) to a not as dirty room just down the street. It's funny how a place can cost 30% more than the place we stayed at in mexico city but be about 60% less apealing.

Well I hope our little house hasn't floated away or been crushed by a giant tree in the storms at home. We finally had some rain in Mexico City, but now it's back to the sun. Trying to figure out how we want to spend the last two weeks of our travels. Looks like tomorrow it's off to Guadalajara for Mariachis and tequila.