In February 2004 we left the van at a campsite in Presidio, Texas-D on the map, left. We caught a bus to Chihuahua in Mexico and after one night there boarded the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railway headed for the Pacific Coast. This is one of the most scenic train journeys in the world and did not disappoint. The map below shows the stops en route. A is Presidio and F is El Fuerte, the end of the line. |
7th February 2004
We ended up staying on Padre Island, where we last wrote, in south west Texas for 3 nights. Unfortunately the weather stayed cool and overcast with a sea mist. Nothing of note happened there apart from meeting a couple who were breaking world records travelling around the world on their motorbikes. Being the hospitable types we are we decided to invite them round for a chilli as they only had room for a single gas ring in their panniers. They were up all night afterwards with ‘the runs’. We thought they were intrepid types; it turned out Mike’s cooking was too rich for them!
We then set off north in a terrible rain storm for San Antonio. This had a charming little downtown area and a tremendous viewing tower called the tower of the Americas. San Antonio is home to The Alamo and we thoroughly enjoyed looking all around there and watched an IMAX film detailing the legend. We also enjoyed a walk along the river walk which took us along the banks of the river straight through the centre of town below street level. I know it sounds weird but it was very pleasant. Sadly the rest of San Antonio was a vast urban sprawl probably spreading about 45 miles from the centre. From San Antonio we set off west to look at some forts. Texas has quite a colourful history with its involvement in the civil war, battles across the border with Mexico and with Indians. This took us West of San Antonio into the hill country through Fredericksburg. We expected to find cowboys, ranches and oil but Fredericksburg turned out to be a small German enclave complete with German beer, pastries and breads. After Fredericksburg heading west we hit the more expected sights of huge open spaces and ranches. Tiny ranching towns were a hundred miles apart. We had read that Texas was huge but it still seems difficult to get our heads round just how huge it really is.
As we headed further west the terrain gradually changed again becoming flatter and drier until we were in the desert. We headed south for a huge National Park called Big Bend. This is in the desert known as the Chihuahua and is separated from Mexico by the Rio Grande River. The desert terrain was remarkable and we were lucky to see birds and animals in their natural habitat including road runners, Javelinas (pronounced havelinas-look like hogs but not related) and extremely rare white tailed deer. The towns in the desert beyond Big Bend all looked very run down but we got chatting to the locals and it seems as though most people are associated with tourism and the properties are rented. A whole town called Lajitas down the road had been purchased by a self made millionaire from Houston. He paid 4 million dollars for it and had spent 52 million ‘doing it all up’. Sadly he also wanted a more upmarket clientele to match and had alienated the local population as well as draining one of the aquifers for his golf course which has drastically depleted the water supply to the Rio Grande. This has in turn affected activities such as white water rafting. An extremely sad end to this tale is that of Lajitas’ famous beer drinking goat, owned by the fat cat and a tourist attraction by himself. An innocent bystander, he mysteriously had his tackle removed one night. Now he has a reason to drink beer. So enough of the local legend, we then moved on to a town called Presidio on the Texas/Mexico border.
From Presidio we decided to make a journey into Mexico to see the Copper Canyon. We packed a back pack and took a bus from Ojinaga on the Mexican side to Chihuahua City. From there we took the train. It took us through Cuauhtémoc; this is a town with a large Mennonite population, a German immigrant religious sect like the ones we saw in Pennsylvania. They have maintained their customs and mainly make cheese and grow apples. From there the train continued through the Copper Canyon to El Fuerte on the other side. This train journey has been described as one of the most scenic in the world. It really was quite amazing and photographs don’t do it justice. We were 8000 feet up at the top looking down into a canyon 1200 feet deep. The train then travelled down through another series of canyons to about 600 feet above sea level through numerous tunnels and bridges. The top had alpine plants and trees and the bottom had lush tropical plants. The whole journey took 14 hours but it was well worth the effort. We ended up spending 6 nights in Mexico and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. My endurance was tested to its limit one day as we set off on a 7km walk. Not a problem. It was to take us through a valley where the indigenous Tiramahura Indians live a primitive life unaltered by the 21st century. The men are famous for running; they can cover a distance of a hundred miles over 72 hours. They hunt traditionally by outrunning deer. However we had a map which was not to scale. Mike worked out the possible distance involved as we walked for over 6 hours. We later found out we had done 22km!! The furthest I have ever walked in my life, I was exhausted. I’m obviously not a descendant of the Tiramahura.
On our return from Mexico we continued West through New Mexico and into Arizona. Just before our departure from Texas we stopped near El Paso at The Cattleman’s Ranch Steakhouse. We had a wonderful meal and didn’t hold back from telling the head barman or the duty manager. We were given souvenir menus and books of matches, very nice. But not as nice as the two bottles of wine the duty manager GAVE us.
The next day we headed west through New Mexico and into Arizona. We did a mine tour in Bisbee, Arizona which took us 1500 feet into the disused Queen Mine, a copper mine. The tour used to take you a mile in but it had collapsed!
From there we drove to Tombstone, ‘The town too tough to die’. This was the scene of the shoot out at the OK Corral and home to legends of the Wild West. We watched a re enactment of the shoot out. Unbelievably it started to snow; this can’t be normal weather for the desert. We then drove up to Tucson and visited another mission. This was described as the Cistine chapel of the south (er, sorry but no). Then onto a desert museum. This was a little disappointing as we had been lucky enough to see many of the exhibits in the flesh.
We are now in a place called Quartzsite in Arizona. This is a winter home to 10’s of thousands of ‘snow birds’ in their RVs. We are just going to warm up a bit for a few days and then continue west.
We ended up staying on Padre Island, where we last wrote, in south west Texas for 3 nights. Unfortunately the weather stayed cool and overcast with a sea mist. Nothing of note happened there apart from meeting a couple who were breaking world records travelling around the world on their motorbikes. Being the hospitable types we are we decided to invite them round for a chilli as they only had room for a single gas ring in their panniers. They were up all night afterwards with ‘the runs’. We thought they were intrepid types; it turned out Mike’s cooking was too rich for them!
We then set off north in a terrible rain storm for San Antonio. This had a charming little downtown area and a tremendous viewing tower called the tower of the Americas. San Antonio is home to The Alamo and we thoroughly enjoyed looking all around there and watched an IMAX film detailing the legend. We also enjoyed a walk along the river walk which took us along the banks of the river straight through the centre of town below street level. I know it sounds weird but it was very pleasant. Sadly the rest of San Antonio was a vast urban sprawl probably spreading about 45 miles from the centre. From San Antonio we set off west to look at some forts. Texas has quite a colourful history with its involvement in the civil war, battles across the border with Mexico and with Indians. This took us West of San Antonio into the hill country through Fredericksburg. We expected to find cowboys, ranches and oil but Fredericksburg turned out to be a small German enclave complete with German beer, pastries and breads. After Fredericksburg heading west we hit the more expected sights of huge open spaces and ranches. Tiny ranching towns were a hundred miles apart. We had read that Texas was huge but it still seems difficult to get our heads round just how huge it really is.
As we headed further west the terrain gradually changed again becoming flatter and drier until we were in the desert. We headed south for a huge National Park called Big Bend. This is in the desert known as the Chihuahua and is separated from Mexico by the Rio Grande River. The desert terrain was remarkable and we were lucky to see birds and animals in their natural habitat including road runners, Javelinas (pronounced havelinas-look like hogs but not related) and extremely rare white tailed deer. The towns in the desert beyond Big Bend all looked very run down but we got chatting to the locals and it seems as though most people are associated with tourism and the properties are rented. A whole town called Lajitas down the road had been purchased by a self made millionaire from Houston. He paid 4 million dollars for it and had spent 52 million ‘doing it all up’. Sadly he also wanted a more upmarket clientele to match and had alienated the local population as well as draining one of the aquifers for his golf course which has drastically depleted the water supply to the Rio Grande. This has in turn affected activities such as white water rafting. An extremely sad end to this tale is that of Lajitas’ famous beer drinking goat, owned by the fat cat and a tourist attraction by himself. An innocent bystander, he mysteriously had his tackle removed one night. Now he has a reason to drink beer. So enough of the local legend, we then moved on to a town called Presidio on the Texas/Mexico border.
From Presidio we decided to make a journey into Mexico to see the Copper Canyon. We packed a back pack and took a bus from Ojinaga on the Mexican side to Chihuahua City. From there we took the train. It took us through Cuauhtémoc; this is a town with a large Mennonite population, a German immigrant religious sect like the ones we saw in Pennsylvania. They have maintained their customs and mainly make cheese and grow apples. From there the train continued through the Copper Canyon to El Fuerte on the other side. This train journey has been described as one of the most scenic in the world. It really was quite amazing and photographs don’t do it justice. We were 8000 feet up at the top looking down into a canyon 1200 feet deep. The train then travelled down through another series of canyons to about 600 feet above sea level through numerous tunnels and bridges. The top had alpine plants and trees and the bottom had lush tropical plants. The whole journey took 14 hours but it was well worth the effort. We ended up spending 6 nights in Mexico and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. My endurance was tested to its limit one day as we set off on a 7km walk. Not a problem. It was to take us through a valley where the indigenous Tiramahura Indians live a primitive life unaltered by the 21st century. The men are famous for running; they can cover a distance of a hundred miles over 72 hours. They hunt traditionally by outrunning deer. However we had a map which was not to scale. Mike worked out the possible distance involved as we walked for over 6 hours. We later found out we had done 22km!! The furthest I have ever walked in my life, I was exhausted. I’m obviously not a descendant of the Tiramahura.
On our return from Mexico we continued West through New Mexico and into Arizona. Just before our departure from Texas we stopped near El Paso at The Cattleman’s Ranch Steakhouse. We had a wonderful meal and didn’t hold back from telling the head barman or the duty manager. We were given souvenir menus and books of matches, very nice. But not as nice as the two bottles of wine the duty manager GAVE us.
The next day we headed west through New Mexico and into Arizona. We did a mine tour in Bisbee, Arizona which took us 1500 feet into the disused Queen Mine, a copper mine. The tour used to take you a mile in but it had collapsed!
From there we drove to Tombstone, ‘The town too tough to die’. This was the scene of the shoot out at the OK Corral and home to legends of the Wild West. We watched a re enactment of the shoot out. Unbelievably it started to snow; this can’t be normal weather for the desert. We then drove up to Tucson and visited another mission. This was described as the Cistine chapel of the south (er, sorry but no). Then onto a desert museum. This was a little disappointing as we had been lucky enough to see many of the exhibits in the flesh.
We are now in a place called Quartzsite in Arizona. This is a winter home to 10’s of thousands of ‘snow birds’ in their RVs. We are just going to warm up a bit for a few days and then continue west.
