The next morning, I had to catch an early ride to the train station at 5 AM. I could hear my taxi ride before I saw it… loud Disneyland-Mad-Hatter-Teacup..-ride music pumped out of the taxi as I was zoomed along the dark streets of Los Mochis with my duffel bag full of geology gear. In the train station I made small talk with locals and Mexican tourists waiting to take the famous "El Chepe" train through the mountains from Los Mochis to Chihuahua. After a delayed departure, I made myself comfortable on "El Chepe" as it began its ascent up into the mountains, going from sea level to over 7,000 feet in elevation. Although I had bought an "express" ticket, this was the slowest train I had ever been on – even slower than the rickety Kenyan Railways last summer! My seatmate, Victoria Gonzales, and I joked how we could walk faster and that if this were the "express," how slow is the "economico" train?? Victoria and her family were great company, and shared their breakfast cinnamon bread with me as we took in the verdant scenery and flowing waterfalls as "El Chepe" chugged it's way up into the canyons of the Sierra Tarahumara. The Chihuahua Pacific railway (El Chepe) took 63 years to complete and is known as one of the major engineering feats in the world with over 99 tunnels and 39 bridges; one tunnel I went through is about 6,000 feet long! The train track hugged mountainous cliffs when it wasn't in a tunnel or crossing over a river on a bridge. No wonder we were going slowly; the engineer didn't want to take a turn too quickly and have us tip into the canyons!
After about 6 hours, I arrived at my destination: Temoris Station. My new friend Victoria wanted to meet Bryan, but the stop was so short I just had Bryan wave to her from the platform, and she gave me two thumbs up and a wink… haha. Bryan got embarrassed and quickly brought me to our major luxury while in Mexico: a 4x4 truck! Very necessary, as the roads are rough and muddy, and there is no public transportation. Thank goodness for research grant funding! As we walked to the truck, I was wondering where the village was – cliffs surrounded us and there were only a few houses and the train station that I could see. Bryan pointed up and I saw where the train was headed: through switchbacks and tunnels up the cliff, and the "road" was similarly snaking its way up the mountain to the village on the rim. After a very bumpy 30 minutes, we arrived in our home for the next month: the village of Temoris. This village is so remote (1-2 day drive from a city to the North-east, or a 6 hour train ride to the south), but I am constantly amazed by the amenities the town has – for instance, shrimp delivered by the train each day and the fact that there are so many trucks in town.
Driving into town, I was greeted with tons of Tecate beer cans strewn about the street; around 4:00 every day the men in town start drinking – and driving – so we always make sure to be back from the field by 4:30 when drivers become even more reckless than usual. We get a little worried when we start seeing cans in the street around 10:30 AM … Our other indicator of when its time to come back into town from our fieldwork is when the thunder starts booming in the afternoon. Growing up in California, I am not used to the thunder and lightning storms every day – wow! Each afternoon around 4:30 or so, we see dark clouds making their way over the mountains to our area, then we begin to hear boom after boom. That's when we pack up and get outta dodge! If we get caught out in the rain, it's very dangerous as we're working in canyons, and the roads become impassable. The skies light up with tons of lightning – it's quite a show! We usually get 'home' in time to take a quick shower before the power goes out for the evening.
We're well-fed by 'Restaurante Gaby' a place in town where we eat breakfast and dinner, and take bean burritos to go for lunch. The food is really good – especially since they make fresh tortillas and have fresh cheese from a Mennonite settlement not too far away. Their albondigas soup and quesadillas are tasty! We're staying in a 'hotel' of sorts, which is much like our old tile-floor, cinderblock wall, Jamaican apartment. We depend on fans to keep us cool in the daily 90-degree heat, and have running water collected from a cistern on top of our room. All in all, we're pretty comfortable. The people here are very nice, and we have fallen back into the custom of greeting everyone you see, something we miss when in the US. The men dress in full cowboy-attire, as most of them work on farms or ranches, and the women are seldom seen outside their homes. The town is quiet most of the time, except when the drinking gets rowdy, and the power outages are actually a good thing: no loud music late into the night!
Bryan's field area is about 20-30 minutes from town, and has lots of pine and oak trees – which actually isn't a good thing, as the pine needles cover Bryan's beloved rocks that we're trying to study. I'll give more details on our fieldwork and the environs later...
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