Those Who Can Walk Well

Some time ago Rick and I were sailing along the west coast of Mexico. In the middle of a particularly hot summer, we had the brilliant idea of hauling our boat out to do some maintenance jobs. It didn’t take us long to realize that August wasn’t really the most suitable month for heavy-duty work in a boatyard in the middle of the Mexican desert. Admittedly, we are tough, but surviving the summer seemed an attractive option, so we decided to go on a little trip to the mountains and return when the temperature had dropped beneath 40°C.

 

We jumped on a train which took us to the biggest and deepest canyon in North America. If you think that title goes to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, you are mistaken. In the heart of northern Mexico there is a canyon, which is four times deeper and also significantly longer than the one in the USA, despite fewer people having heard of it. The Mexicans call it ‘Barrancas del Cobre’, while tourists know it as ‘The Copper Canyon’.

 

The best way to visit this natural beauty is by El Chepe - a slow train, which climbs 940km from Los Mochis on the coast to the city of Chihuahua. The railway passes beneath 410 bridges and though 99 tunnels - the longest of which stretches for almost 2 km.

 

 

After one year of desert landscapes in the Californian peninsula, the greenery of the Sierra Tarahumara was a much welcomed change. Even though we had reserved very comfy seats on the train, we preferred to stand at the rear of the train, where the view was much better.

 

 

The Sierra Tarahumara is an enormous forest where the Raramuri people have been hiding for centuries. Their name translates as, ‘those, who can walk well’. They are renowned for their running abilities which have helped them hunt, travel from one village to another and escape the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. They are known for their excellent endurance and are the world’s best extreme distance runners. But what truly fascinates the world is not simply their running prowess, but the fact that they do it barefoot or in simple sandals made out of car tyres. (I highly recommend the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, which describes this unique tribe very well).

 

 

Today roughly fifty thousand Raramuris live in the caves and forests of the Sierra Tarahumara. They are mainly farmers and seem disinterested in the modern world. During the train ride we spotted many dots of colour hiding amongst the trees. The women always wear extremely colourful skirts and often have big scarfs around their shoulders to carry their babies.

 

 

It was truly refreshing to ride for hours alongside widening streams as the Mexican desert gave way to the lush green bush. We e entually stepped out of the train at the main settlement of Creel. At 2800m this is as high as the train goes and is a fascinating melting pot where the inhabitants peacefully cohabitate with the tourists and where you can not only observe the genuine daily life of the people but also find a nice, clean hotel room and drinkable coffee (which is almost impossible to find anywhere else in the region). Creel has a small square, where you can really get the true feeling of the town’s daily rhythm.

 

The women in their colourful skirts sit under the trees, lost in their stitching and sewing. A horse trots by with a real cowboy on its back. Someone plays the guitar and sings a soulful Mexican melody. Nobody is in a hurry. The arrival of the train brings a brief flurry of activity as the hotel owners compete for the small tourist flock, the women display their hand-made woven work and tourists guides tout their various slices of planned adventure.

 

 

 

 

In such a small village word travels fast. A week after we arrived, the local teacher asked me if I would like to take over some lessons in her school, while her husband asked Rick to help out with a difficult horse. So for a few days we found ourselves back in our old careers …

 

 

When we escaped the heat of the boatyard, we thought we would take a week or two off, but we liked Creel so much we stayed for a month. At the end it almost felt like home. We knew where to find the best coffee, where to get the yummiest burritos and at what time the train arrived. The local villagers came to know us and eventually stopped trying to talk us into a tourist trip or sell us souvenirs. The children and their parents kept stopping me in the street to tell me how much they enjoyed my lesson about the fauna of the Sea of Cortez. I think what impressed them most though was the fact that I live on a boat. Many of those children had never even seen the sea.