The raven-haired little beauty
barely whispered the price of the doll I was considering. She shyly
looked down, but her smile was worthy of Da Vinci. I asked her age,
but she just shrugged her shoulders. To the Tarahumara Indians, age is
an unknown and unimportant concept. Bedecked in a colorful carnival of
flounced skirts, the young girl, perhaps eight years old, had her
wares spread out mere steps from a 6.00 foot cliff. Behind her, an
incredibly vast panorama stretched into infinity.
Here in Mexico's glorious Copper Canyon, inhabited by the
cliff-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, I felt as though I was not only in
a different world, but in another era as well. I'd lived and worked in
Mexico for years, and had traveled extensively there. But this was an
experience completely apart from any other. Think you know Mexico from
your many visits to Cancun, Vallarta and Acapulco? Guess again - the "Barrancas
de Cobre" is a Mexico only five percent of its tourists have seen.
The Copper Canyon area takes up 25,000 square miles, almost a full
third of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. This beautiful
region of the Sierra Madre mountains is filled with enormous
waterfalls, caves, forests, apple orchards, rich flora and fauna, the
famed Tarahumara Indians with their fascinating, age-old culture and
one of the longest and deepest systems of canyons in the world,
actually four times deeper than the Grand Canyon. How to see it: take
an unforgettable trip on the Chihuahua-Pacific Railway, an engineering
marvel which took 100 years to build and now makes a large section of
this once unreachable area easily and pleasantly accessible. The "Chepe,"
as it is affectionately known, takes its travelers from sea level to
8,000 feet through five climatic zones, 86 tunnels, 37 bridges and
some of the world's most spectacular scenery.
Travelers can either start their rail journey in Chihuahua, or from
the coast, as we did. We began in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, a small, tidy
city founded by a North American sugar magnate in 1903. Worthy of a
night's stay, particularly to enjoy the fabulous, nationally renowned
seafood at El Farallon Restaurant, Los Mochis also offers the Sinaloa
Botanical Garden, a good regional museum and El Maviri beach is just
20 minutes away. Los Mochis can be reached by a three-hour drive or
busride from Mazatlan, or by air, with connecting service to several
Mexican cities.
We could have boarded the train in Los Mochis, but due to time
constraints, we traveled by bus for 1 1/2 hours to El Fuerte, a
delightfully preserved and restored colonial town. Founded in 1564, El
Fuerte is a member of Mexico's "pueblos magicos" program, which
highlights small towns that maintain the charm and feel of yesteryear.
El Fuerte felt like a Mexico I'd only seen in old westerns, with its
cobblestone streets, beautifully cared-for architecture, sleepy little
main street and perfect little plaza. The inns in El Fuerte epitomize
charm - no chain properties here, these are lovingly adorned in
folkart, covered in bougainvillea, filled with touches such as
rock-walled jacuzzis, ceilings hung with dozens of pinatas,
handpainted tiled swimming pools and tropical courtyards in which
purple and pink petals rained over me. My room at the Posada de
Hidalgo, built in 1890, smelled lusciously of aged oak, guava and
flowers. I wanted to spend weeks here, not just a day. Afternoons
bring a visit to the 1,500 year old Nahuatl Petroglyphs, lazy
inflatable raft trip down the El Fuerte River, a wide, slow waterway
where I saw gray and white egrets, blue and tiger herons, cormorants,
a flock of black vultures eerily crowded in a spindly tree and two or
three fishermen casting nets for catfish and bass.
We boarded the train here. Since 1961, this now privatized railroad
has been traveling daily through 406 miles of railways. Originally
designed to provide the city of Chihuahua with access to the sea, as
well as to promote development of the Sierra Tarahumara region of the
western Sierra Madre, its construction began in 1898. It is considered
one of the most spectacular feats of engineering in the world. The
Chihuahua-Pacific Railroad is air-conditioned/heated, with a dining
car, lounge, bilingual personnel, and reclining seats. After settling
in, most passengers explore the train, walking from boxcar to boxcar.
Outside, in between the cars, I madly snapped photos of the
ever-changing scenery and covered my ears from the deafening roar when
we rushed through tunnels. The breeze made it pleasantly fresh, even
though the June climate at the lower elevations was hot and humid.
I first spotted some Tarahumara Indians, with their not-to-be-missed
rainbow attire, at a tiny train station where only the second-class
train stops. As they reached up to sell their intricate pine-needle
baskets, I felt the thrill I always feel when presented with a truly
different culture. The Tarahumara were dressed, from head to toe, in
their traditional clothing - no tennis shoes, no watches, just
huaraches, bandannas and hand-sewn calico skirts and blouses of every
color imaginable.
Famed for their long-distance running ability, some 50,000 Tarahumara
Indians live in caves and primitive log cabins in the Copper Canyon
region, much as their ancestors have for hundreds of years. They are
considered the largest and best preserved ethnic group in Mexico.
Their inexpensive handmade crafts, including pine needle baskets,
rustic violins, wooden dolls, carvings and woven goods, are
distinctive and unlike other Mexican folkart. Refreshingly, wheeling
and dealing doesn't exist with the Tarahumara - prices are given
quietly and respectfully. If you decide not to buy at the quoted
price, just walk away.
Our next station, Bahuichivo, just eight miles from Cerocahui, brought
us to a small village, founded in 1681, at the edge of Urique Canyon,
the deepest canyon in the system, at 6136 feet. Cerocahui's 900
inhabitants live in a valley surrounded by mountains and apple
orchards. Doors are invitingly left open, and there is such safety and
trust here that children as young as two can wander the dusty paths
without fear. When I spotted a little kitten in a doorway, the elderly
couple inside begged me to step in and visit with them in their
spotless, one-room bungalow. Another woman, no taller than my
eight-year-old daughter, beckoned us in to her bathroom-sized parlor
to see her handmade dolls for sale.
Hotels here are small inns, walking distance from the historic old
Jesuit mission church, and the very moving Tewecado Mission School, a
Tarahumara girls boarding school, run as a charity by the Catholic
Church. It welcomes visitors and has an impressive gift shop of native
crafts and baskets. The girls live in dormitories right out of the
French 'Madeline' books, with iron beds lined up in rows, covered with
yellow and blue spreads and identical dolls on the pillows. The girls,
although impoverished, are warm, enthusiastic and love to sing and
dance for visitors. During our visit, they asked me to sing in English
for them, and were delighted to hear my outstanding rendition of "Itsy
Bitsy Spider." I was so overcome emotionally by the visit to the
school that I left in tears, partly from seeing their beauty and
exuberance, but also from realizing the intense poverty of the
children's families, who live in remote areas and only see their
daughters twice a year.
From Cerocahui, tourists can take a 45-minute, bumpy drive to the
Cerro del Gallego Urique Lookout, a 7,500 foot elevation, which
affords a sweeping, glorious view of the Copper Canyon system and the
mining town of Urique down below. Visits to Urique are possible as
well, as are various opportunities for birdwatching and hikes or
horse-back rides to waterfalls and an abandoned gold mine.
Next stop - El Divisadero, one of the most famous tourist stops in the
entire Sierra Tarahumara range. One of the best observation points
over Urique Canyon, El Divisadero has several four star hotels, two of
them perched right on the 'rim' with magnificent views. A small,
bustling shopping area is located right at the rustic station, where
both Tarahumaras and mestizos alike sell their wares, along with
aromatic tacos and empanadas. This area has wonderful hiking trails.
From El Divisadero, we moved on to Creel, once known as a 'wild west'
community, but now settled into a peaceful town of 4,000, with a wide
variety of businesses, most relying on tourism. For Copper Canyon
visitors starting their trip in Chihuahua, Creel is considered the
gateway to the region. Creel's Casa de las Artesanias, a state
government institution for promoting regional and Tarahumara crafts is
in the town center and has very reasonable prices. Creel also hosts a
good museum on Tarahumara culture. There is much to be seen nearby. We
traveled to the sparkling blue Lake Arareko, which was evocative of
postcards of Swiss mountain lakes, if not for the tiny clusters of
Tarahumara women selling their wares every 100 yards or so. Camping
sites, hostels and a luxury rental cabin are all available at the
lake, as well as small launches for rent. We then toured the so-called
Valley of the Mushrooms, named for the group of colossal
mushroom-shaped rocks there, but didn't have time to visit its less
famous neighbors - Valley of the Toads and Valley of the Breasts.
Several Tarahumara mission settlements are also here, such as the
Cusarare Mission, with centuries-old churches and tiny clusters of log
cabins and cave dwellings, sometimes a mission school as well. Nominal
admission is typically charged to enter the churches. I was admonished
in broken Spanish by a Tarahumara, swirling her skirts fussily, for
not presenting my admission ticket, when I poked around a dusty old
church in a village that seemed so forlorn, it amazed me anyone there
would bother waiting for tourists to pay. I hadn't even noticed her,
sitting as she was in a dark corner.
From here, many tours opt for road rather than train travel to
Chihuahua, as there are opportunities to visit various Mennonite
communities, where some 65,000 Mennonites, of German, Swiss and Dutch
extraction, live on immaculate farms where they keep up their
traditions faithfully and sell cheese and other products. The
countryside is green and lush, dotted with enormous apple and peach
orchards, cow pastures and small towns.
Finally, we arrived in Chihuahua, a cattle, industrial and commercial
center, bustling with a very Western-tinged ambiance. Chihuahua,
definitely worthy of at least a day's stay, features the Museum of the
Mexican Revolution (Revolutionary Pancho Villa's house,) the
Government Palace, the baroque style Cathedral and the Gameros
Mansion.
It is widely quoted that someone once said, "the Copper Canyon is what
the Grand Canyon would like to be when it grows up." Certainly, while
each region is magnificent in its own right, no where can rival
Mexico's Copper Canyon for beauty, grandeur and diversity, along with
its extraordinary cultural wealth.
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