Copper Canyon, Gold memories

The highlight of our trip to Mexico was the discovery of the Copper Canyon onboard the only passenger train in Mexico: the legendary Chepe (Chihuahua-Pacifico). 

We flew from Monterrey to Chihuahua and spent one day discovering the city, since the train left on the next morning at 6am (Mexican) sharp! We then stopped at the station "Posada Barrancas", from where we got the best views onto the Barrancas (canyons), and on the next day we continued our way to the Pacific, stopping at Bahuichivo, where we stayed in the town of Cerocahui, in the middle of the lower Tarahumara mountains. The next day, we got on the train for the last time and got off at the station of El Fuerte, in the state of Sinaloa. We spent the night, and the next morning we were off to Los Mochis, where we caught a bus to Culiacán, where we took the plane back to Monterrey.

A small part of Pancho Villa's house in Chihuahua

Pancho Villa with a fellow revolutionary

La Casona, a delicious restaurant in Chihuahua

Doesn't Chihuahua's angel look like a fairy?

Chihuahua train station, 5.30 am

Onboard the Chepe

People getting on and off on the way

Barrancas del Cobre at last

Zip-lining and suspension bridges in Barrancas del Cobre's adventure park

 

Happy hour at Hotel El Mirador

Piedra Volada, Barrancas del Cobre

Posada Barrancas rail station

Bear-shaped rock on the way to Cerocahui

Cañon de Urique

A vineyard in Cerocahui

Cerocahui's church

On the Chepe again, crossing one of the 37 bridges 

Getting out of one of the 86 tunnels

A different landscape as we arrived in Sinaloa

El Fuerte, Sinaloa (allegedly the Zorro's hometown)

The fort that gave its name to the town 

Back to Monterrey: the Cerro de la Silla, my favourite mountain in the world!
(especially because I climbed it twice!)

Stopover at the Lone Star State

God, I love jetlag! Falling asleep at 6pm, then waking up at 3am, priceless! That just adds to the joy of being back in Saudi Arabia!

To remain in the spirit of the vacations, I'll just tell you a bit about our trip. After a 17-hour flight from Dubai to Houston, we felt we needed a couple of days to rest before we could handle the Mexican fiestas. So we stayed a couple of days in Houston with our friend Roberto (who happens to be Mexican, so we didn't actually get any rest ;) And it was brilliant and we had a lot of fun. I liked that we heard people speaking Spanish everywhere, the food was pretty good too, although the servings were just sooo large! (but we always made the effort to finish our plates ;))

We played chess in the Microsoft Store (yes, it's a copy of the Apple store, but no, it's not a pale copy, it's actually pretty well-designed)

We went to the moon! (virtually, at the NASA Center)

We learnt... a lot of interesting stuff painted in colours on a blackboard!

We pretended we were astronauts

We saw a giant rocket

We had delicious breakfasts after 12 pm (love the concept of all-day breakfast!)

We went to an NBA game! (Houston Rockets vs. Memphis Grizzlies)

We cheered a lot and helped the Rockets win the game (true story!)

We saw the Rockets' mascot, Clutch

And we even drank beer!

I'll get back to you shortly with some great pictures of the Copper Canyon in Mexico!