By Town Crier Report
 photo courtesy of ann duwe This year, Town Crier Train Tours will visit Mexico’s Copper Canyon aboard a vintage train. |
To see the Grand Canyon, one takes a boat. To see Mexico’s Copper Canyon, one takes the train. Local residents have the opportunity to visit Copper Canyon, North America’s deepest canyon, Nov. 1-7, on board a vintage American Orient Express train. The trip is sponsored by Town Crier Train Tours.
“Copper Canyon is far larger than Arizona’s Grand Canyon,” said Paul Nyberg, an admitted train buff who founded Town Crier Train Tours to satisfy his longing to travel by train in the company of friends. “The rail route passes through 87 tunnels and crosses 39 bridges - the sort of things that give train enthusiasts goose bumps.”
The train is made up of cars rounded up from museums and private collections, then restored to a level of excellence reminiscent of the 1940s and 1950s. In those days a lounge car with live music was part of the experience. Just as in days long past, tour goers will be treated to songs by George Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael and Cab Calloway. The train has a dome car for sightseeing, something the original trains didn’t have.
The journey begins in Tucson, Ariz., where participants board a bus for the border crossing into Nogales, where they will board the train. The train heads south to San Carlos on the Sea of Cortez before heading east into the ruggedly beautiful canyons of the Sierra Madre. Passengers disembark in Chihuahua and transfer across the border by bus to El Paso to return home.
The train tracks reach elevations of more than 8,000 feet, passing dramatic river gorges and rocky peaks. Copper Canyon is, in effect, a collection of canyons carved by the Urique, Septentrion, Batopilas and Chinipas rivers. The canyon system encompasses approximately 900 square miles, with stretches a mile deep and a mile wide.
“Copper Canyon remains unspoiled, chiefly due to its lack of roads. That’s a very good reason to go there, not to mention the joys of riding a vintage train,” said Ann Duwe, the program planner for the tour. Duwe is responsible for the arrangements for the Copper Canyon trip as well as the Sept. 8-12 Town Crier Train Tours to Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Scenery isn’t the only attraction for the Mexico train tour. Colonial-era villages dot the landscape, and a visit is planned with members of the Tarahumara American Indian community. Renowned for endurance running, tradition holds that the Tarahumara used to hunt deer by chasing them to the point of exhaustion. Exploited and enslaved by Mexicans and Americans, they survive as a scattered, sometimes seminomadic population of approximately 50,000. During the stop in Divisadero, Town Crier travelers will see a foot racing demonstration and traditional Tarahumara dance.
Los Altos residents Bob and Marion Grimm, who visited Copper Canyon by train in 1997, enjoyed the stops at towns along the route for walks and visits to local markets.
“Copper Canyon is very rural, like Mexico in general, but quite different from Baja,” Bob said.
Stops include: San Carlos for a naturalist-led boat trip on the Sea of Cortez; Alamos - founded in 1540 and recently declared a national historic monument - for a guided tour of this former silver mining center; Creel to visit the Cusarare Mission and Loyola Museum; and Chihuahua to visit the Museum of the Revolution, former home of Pancho Villa.
The train will serve as hotel for tour goers. Sleeping cars consist of six to 10 compartments, each with its own sink, water closet and picture window. Some meals are scheduled off the train. Lunch at Alamos will be served at the Hacienda de Los Santos Resort and Spa where the owners have restored an enclave of Spanish colonial buildings. Rooms are filled with museum-quality antiques, and the whole is lushly landscaped amid a series of pools and fountains. The restoration was featured in the January 2005 issue of Architectural Digest.
For more information, call 941-6381 or e-mail ann.duwe@sbcglobal.net.
