Sep.16 - 19 Mexico City
Leaving Rio Dulce again. First easy 6 hours drive via Letigua bus to Guatemala City, then 3 hours flight to Mexico City, and around 9 pm we finally managed to the apartment we rented on airbnb. We stayed for 3 nights in a very nice modern apartment complex right in the historical center, near Alameda park and all museums, just in 10 min walking distance. Our hosts, Rosa, her daughter and their friendly dog Pendragon, were very nice to us and our room in their apartment was very clean and comfortable. Mexico City was such a surprise for us! It's a huge, civilized, and beautiful city. We spent 2 days there and still were not able to visit all tourist attractions. The whole day trip on the TuriBus was very helpful, this way we were able to see different districts of the city. In Zona Rosa we saw modern crazy tall buildings, in Codesa we had our delicious lunch in one of the thousand "nature" restaurants, in Perisur mall, the biggest and hippest, we bought the new phone for me; but the most strange thing we saw was an abundance of Starbucks in Mexico City - we counted 18 while traveling through the city! So far my favorite building was Bella Artes Center right in the Alameda park - a true monument to the Art Deco.
Sep.19-23
Unforgettable stop at Los Mochis. Just one night here, but we were so ready to leave this gods abundant place! Hotel "St.Cruz" was ok, $30 a night, hot water, clean and a big flat screen TV. But the people on the streets were not much friendly, there are a lot of dilapidated and once prosperous businesses and buildings, strip bars with closed doors, military men with seriously huge guns on the street and non smiling women around. And, it was very hot and humid on the streets. We had tacos for lunch, bad Chinese food for dinner and warm rum and coke in our hotel room.
Next morning we woke up at 4:30 to drive to the Chepe train stations by taxi. We successfully made it out from Los Mochis at 6 am.
We mostly slept on the train for the first couple hours. The second class cars exceeded our expectations, especially considering the price of the tickets, which are half price of the first class.
In about 6 hours we arrived at Bahochivos, where we joined the tourists trap and agreed to travel by the track to the nearby quaint little town Cerocahui. We stayed at the Posada Jade owned by former Mexican-new-Yorker Him and his wife were very accommodating. They have lived there for 5 years and built Jade hotel/restaurant and own a ranch with cattle. He kept some of his New York ways and charged a lot for everything and tried to get us to pay for his gas so him and his wife could go visit their kids in Chihuahua. We opted to not do that. Instead he dropped us off at the rim of Urique canyon and we walked down. But first we visited a waterfall and church and met Juan who has 2 horses which he wanted to use to take us somewhere. The one horse was named Piqueña.
Next day after breakfast our new-Yorker host drove us to the rim of Urique canyon, on the way there we picked up one lady tarahumarian (local Indians) who became our companion in the exhausting 3.5 hours walk down in the canyon. Unfortunately the road was closed because of the rain damage and there were not any tracks to give us a ride down. And here we are, walking with our heavy backpacks in the heat. On the way down our Indian friend disappeared couple times taking shortcuts through the cliffs but I guess they like to keep these shortcuts in the secret from gringos. We picked up and ate some cactus fruits - tunas, and Kevin got couple thorns in his tongue, that was funny for us and painful for Kevin.
When our stamina warned out, we got lucky and hitch hiked the only passing truck on the road which drove us some distance further to the point where bulldozer was working on the road. From there we finally made it to the town Urique and got nice room with with AC!
Stay in Urique was much uneventful - old little sleepy town with one street and two restaurants. One of them, Restaurant Plaza, belongs to the owner of our hotel (Estrella on Rio) and his wife fed us "chicken cordon blu" Mexican style, so to say. We were happy to leave this town next morning, especially knowing that there is not other transportation the whole day because of the work on the road.
The bus dropped us off in Bahuchivo near the Chepe train station, and we had to wait about 3 hours for the train. Walked on the street trying to find some decent food we met some gringos from Missouri who told us be careful on the streets and better stay at the train station, and we followed their advice - to many armed national guards on the streets. We made it safe to the next stop - Posada Barrancas, totally safe and very expansive tourists place!
Sep.23 - 26
We got on the bus with the stream of rich Mexican tourists and were delivered in Posada Barranca Mirador. Amazing hotel! We got the best (and very expansive room - $190 per night) with a breathtaking view on the all three canyons. We really enjoyed staying there, the food was ok - similarly to the all-inclusive hotels, but they had wine - a big plus!
The view from our balcony on the canyons during sunrise was spectaculars and worth any penny spent there. We took an hour walk around in the morning and then joined the tourists army in the tour bus to the adventure park. That park has everything: zip lines, repelling, climbing, cable car. Just pay money! We had a trip on the cable car and the excursion to the best viewing points - that was great. Afternoon we (and our new friends tourists) took the train the next station - Creel.
Many years ago mayans were living in the caves, we visited one of such caves...
The last stop on this trip is Chichuahua, the capital of the state Chichuachua. We had three days to explore this modern and westernized city. It's too close to the Texas border and almost everybody is speaking English and has one or two relatives in US. We found on the airbnb a place to stay for three nights in very safe area walking distance to the city center. We were amazed by the number of the Starbuks cafes here.
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