After my 1987 visit to Copper Canyon, I had wanted to return but life and other trips had to take precedence, so it was not until November 1990 that I decided to re-visit Mexico through Bananafish Tours and the husband-and-wife team of Bill and Sandy Wallace. After a telephone call, I was set for a solo trip.
12/26/1990 On Boxing Day, I drove down to Calexico, parked in the AA parking lot, crossed the border and took a taxi to the Hotel Lucerna, the nicest hotel in Mexicali and the new location from which Bananafish tours departed. I watched "Dallas" in Spanish, with the voice of J.R. Ewing sounding much too nice. I had a good dinner before meeting Bill and Sandy prior to returning to my room wanting to be well-rested.
12/27/1990 The next morning our group met outside the north building and were taken to the station on an old school bus. As we arrived, I saw Ferrocarril Sonora Baja California 2-8-0 2703, nee 1344, built by Alco-Cooke in 1907 on display. As I went through Customs, I realized I had forgotten my birth certificate so when it was my turn, I was silently admonished then went out to the train and put my bags in my room of "Rio Magico", a former New York Central sleepering car that had been used on the 20th Century Limited.
The sky looked very odd and had an extremely thick band of cirrocumulus clouds across it, something I had never seen before, and it was a harbinger of things to come. Our eight-car train, with three regular Mexico train coaches and our five Bananafish cars on the rear for the journey to Sufragio very early tomorrow morning, departed on time and I noticed that the geothermal area south of town had been developed more since my last visit. There was a really strong northwest wind blowing as we crossed the Colorado River and its level the lowest I have ever seen. We proceeded into the peaceful Altar Desert and the wind was keeping the sand down along the ground, making for a most enjoyable crossing, unlike the previous time when I was caked with sand.
One of the crosses at the memorial site before we reached Puerto Penasco, where the sky looked even stranger. The sleeping car rode extremely smoothly and I concluded it had to be the smoothest riding car I had been on. I worked on a few word search puzzles, something that I recently started, then we arrived in Carboca, meeting our westbound sister first class train from Guadalajara and I had time to detrain to stretch my legs. I noticed the air felt moist, which was wrong for this time of year. On the move again, I rode in a vestibule and about twenty minutes later, the train passed through a heavy rain shower which was out of character since this was late December and the dry season here.
We passed out of the shower into a beautiful sunset with various red and orange hues and "spectacular" described it perfectly, reminding me of the Deep Purple song "Burn" and its lyrics "Sky is red, I do not understand". We arrived in Benjamin Hill and waited for the train from Nogales and once it arrived, one long train was made from the two and we departed south into the Sonora night. I went to the lounge and talked with several of the other passengers, recounting the Three Amigos story from my last trip with Sandy before retiring for the night.
12/28/1990The next morning, I awoke to the sound of heavy raindrops hitting the roof of "Rio Magico" and I walked to the rear door and saw that the open car had a lake in it, so put on my new all-weather long MacArthur Fundamental Intermediate jacket which Mary Ann Glenn, my female counterpart in the Physical Education Department, had given me. I detrained and walked around the Sufragio train yard and since it was now pouring, I sought refuge inside the station. The odour from the station made this my first and only visit then I waited under cover for a break in the storm and when one arrived, dashed back to the sleeper. The first class Chihuahua al Pacifico train arrived, did its station work then high-balled out of town during an extremely heavy shower. I had breakfast of a bagel with tea before venturing into the open car and standing in the rain.
CHP Train 7 arrived with the caboose being cut off and the train pulling forward to do its station work then it reversed onto our cars, re-coupled the caboose and we departed. The rain cascaded off "Rio Magico" into the open car but left a dry area of fifteen feet so I took advantage of it. Minutes later a couple came out and were amazed by my location in such a wet environment. The caboose crew were having a good laugh at our expense so I had the couple wait and went to my room to get a couple of railroad postcards and went back outside. I pulled out the post cards, pointed to them and the crew then pointed to us, and the crew waved to us to join them in the caboose.
We made our way across the lake of the open car and entered the shelter of the caboose and I presented each of our new friends with a postcard and received nice firm handshakes in return. They then cooked us breakfast on the stove, which was chicken in tortillas. I had just the chicken and for my first caboose meal, it was very good. We took turns riding in the cupola but soon found our favourite vantage point was the rear platform because we could see through the extremely heavy rain. We passed a deserted station at El Fuerte, the location of the quiet cement plant before our first scheduled stop at Loreta, where due to the rain, there were no locals outsidea Other than the few passengers who boarded and our train crew, there was no sign of life in the intensely pouring rain.
We were soon joined by a few more adventurous members of our group, with none of them having been in a caboose before, so now I had three wet people to show the sights. The train was approaching the crossing of the El Fuerte River and I knew it would be very different from my last trip. We rolled out onto the bridge and looked down, seeing the water span the entire width of the channel and since this being the longest bridge on the railroad, it was running about twenty feet deep and wild. The river's colour of chocolate brown definitely meant it was at flood stage. As we made our way across the bridge, if it had not been pouring, you could have heard a pin drop in the caboose as everyone was standing in silent amazement at the wild water below.
We stopped at the station at Aquacaliente, which should just be called Aqua in honour of today's rainfall, then proceeded into the foothills as the rain continued before we had a reprieve by entering the El Descanso Tunnel. As we exited the tunnel, the train stopped and as I listened to the Spanish being spoken on the crew's radio, realized there was a large rock on the track. The engine crew spent twenty minutes removing it then we continued onward into the storm. Down in the farmlands below, the whole area was flooded and we prayed that everyone escaped safely before the rising waters reached the farms. We crossed the Chinipas River bridge, the highest on the railroad and way down below, the water here was also running high and wild. A fan of waterfalls would have been in their element as there were waterfalls by the hundred and everywhere where water could flow off the canyon walls, it was doing so. It was an incredible scene.
It was hard to believe that it was raining harder now than before, so hard that I could not see the canyon wall on the other side of the Rio Serpentine, which was a torrent. We crossed the shorter bridge just east of Jesus Cruz with the water cascading and moving some rather large boulders then passed through a short tunnel and a rock fell onto the roof of the caboose and we were very relieved that it did not land in the open car with us in it. We exited the next tunnel and made our way through a waterfall, which hit off the rooves of the coaches about a third of the way across, landed in the middle of the open car then drenched the caboose. Luckily, we saw it coming and everyone went inside, thereby staying dry. Looking back, I could see the water landing in the middle of the track but it found its way off the right-of-way. The train continued to climb and we entered a tunnel, only to stop while we were still inside then about five minutes later, the rear brakeman stepped off and walked out into the rain to put a torpedo on the rails behind us to warn any other train that we were stopped. If another train ran over the torpedo, a loud bang would alert that crew that a train was stopped or someone was working ahead. We then exited the tunnel and went around a curve at a walking pace before we stopped, where word came back that there was another rock on the track and we would be here a while as the rain continued to fall.
It was lunch time back in Bananafish reality so when I went to the lounge car to get mine, Sandy asked me to take the rear crew their meal, which I of course did. I found two of the crew back in the caboose where I had left them and learned that our rear brakeman was still out in the rain, so I climbed down to find him. I walked back around the curve through the tunnel, found him at the far portal staying dry and gave him his meal. He smiled broadly and thanked me in English; my good deed for the day. As I walked back through the tunnel, I stopped and was amazed how quiet it was inside and enjoyed the first silence of the day then upon exiting, burst into the song "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head", which seemed to be ideal in the current situatione. Being aware of my surroundings, waterfalls were everywhere and the sound of raindrops echoed loudly off anything they hit.
I walked back to the caboose and stopped at a waterfall by the tracks to wash my hands, reboarded and decided to see what kind of a rock had stopped us in our tracks. I walked out of the Bananafish cars, through the regular train and detrained, walked past the express cars and locomotives to find the offending boulder, which was the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.
The crew had wedged railroad ties underneath in an attempt to move it. I returned to the lounge car to report what I had seen, then as it was obvious that we would not be moving any time soon, went to my room for a nap while the rain continued to fall. After being asleep for a couple of hours, I woke up to find that we had not moved an inch and joined the others to find a group of very unhappy passengers complaining about everything and did not think that they are were getting their money's worth. Sandy approached me and explained the situation and I commiserated with her then strolled through the open car to the caboose where I found the five happy passengers who had been with me earlier. We chatted as the afternoon wore on and the rain continued, then as it became dark, the rain turned into a mist as the clouds were lowering.
Off in the distance we started to hear the rumble of a freight train slowly making its way up the grade and then heard the sound of the torpedo exploding. I climbed off the caboose and walked back around the corner to flag down the freight train and let them know that they were getting close to us. They came to within forty feet then the entire crew dismounted and walked through our train to help with the rock and with that assistance, they were successful in moving it. I went and found Bill who told me that the plan was to go to Santa Nĩo for the night and that we would try to retrace our steps tomorrow. I went to the open car to enjoy the last few miles of the evening and believe it or not, it had stopped raining. We arrived at Santa Nĩo where the train stopped and I went back to my room.
12/29/1990 The next morning I awoke to absolute quiet and not a sound of a single raindrop. My knees, on the other hand, were really stiff and caused me great pain, which only happened when the air pressure was very low. After stretching for about twenty minutes, I decided to explore the area so detrained on the river side of the tracks and walked to the edge of the cliff, where I saw Rio Serpentine still running wild and fast then reboarded and went to the lounge car for breakfast. I talked with Bill and learnt the plan was to take us to Los Mochis, put us up for at least one night at the Hotel Santa Anita then decide what to do the rest of the trip, since the storm damage was unknown.
The locomotive had run around the train so it was in front of the open car, but there is a flat car with a school bus on it between us and the engines. Suddenly there were four blasts of the horn and we were slowly off, proceeding downgrade at a much slower pace than normal in case we needed to stop. We made our way through each of the tunnels and I was watching the rocks above each of the portals, occasionally noting fresh breakage with the fallen pieces along the tracks. When we returned to the waterfall area, I warned everyone and they stayed dry, then as we passed through the area, I made a dash to the right along the mountain side of the car and remained totally dry, turning back just in time to watch the stream of water leave the open car and pour down onto the coaches.
We exited the bridge and looked down at the farmlands that were still flooded, making us wonder if the river would crest higher from the rain that fell in the mountains then entered Tunnel 85 with only one more to go. Howevever, we suddenly stopped, but could not see anything around the curve but the locomotives cut off and ran ahead, which meant there was something on the tracks and the crew would use the engines to try and knock it off. After silence, I detrained to find out what the problem was and found our three-man crew looking at a boulder that was sitting on top of the inside rail.
A little later, I returned and three had become twenty, standing for support while one man with a sledge hammer worked on the rock in a rhythmic action. Knowing we would be here for quite a while, I returned to my room. Later, Bill came by to see how my knees were and we chatted mainly about the group of negative passengers. I remarked that at least the other half were happy, adding that I was always happy on these excursions, knowing that every trip was an adventure with the good thrown in with the bad. Sandy then visited and gave me the details of the rest of the trip, as well as asking about my knees and I was touched by both of their concern.
I went to the open car just as we entered the El Descanso Tunnel and thought we would have clear sailing from here to Los Mochis. The train was rapidly descending through the foothills with the sun finally completely breaking through the clouds. Looking back towards the mountains, a few rainbows could be seen, it was absolutely beautiful and I was thankful that we were able to make our escape with very few problems. We stopped at Aquacaliente to drop off a few passengers who would not be making their trip east before crossing the El Fuerte River, still running wild and at flood stage.
As the train climbed away from the El Fuerte River, I decided to ride in the locomotive and looked at the bus on that flat car and I could see someone in it, but first went back to my room for some more railroad postcards to give to the crew. I walked back through the open car, stepped onto the flat car and made my way around the bus with its crazy driver onto the rear locomotive before reaching the cab of the lead one. The crew looked surprised to see me but after I gave them the postcards, had made three new friends. I rode in the cab through Loreta, El Fuerte and to San Blas, where we meet the Pacifico's main line, then thanked the crew and returned to the open car for the rest of the journey to Los Mochis.
We were paralleling the FCP main line back into Sufragio where a large group of the regular train's passengers detrained and I was becoming excited for the new trackage and its miles. We passed the interchange track where we normally are picked up and dropped off, then accelerated to go up and over the FCP's track on a flyover. The sun had officially set so we made our way through this semi-tropical part of Sinaloa in twilight and I rode the open car all the way into Los Mochis because I had the forethought to pack my bags during the last delay. The city lights appeared on the horizon and we made a beeline for them and stopped at the station on the edge of town. I went inside, grabbed my bag and detrained to board a bus to the Hotel Santa Anita, received my room and called it a night. What a rail adventure I lived through the last two days, completely incredible and one that I will never forget.
12/30/1990 The next morning, my knees could hardly move but I managed to struggle out of bed and prepare myself for the day then went downstairs to the café for hot cakes and bacon, which hit the spot. I went out into the lobby and met Bill and Sandy who informed me the plan was to have the bags in the lobby by 10:00 AM and meet to take a bus to the town of El Fuerte to spend the afternoon. Our luggage would go back to the train with Bill and Sandy leading the bus trip. I went back to my room to watch a little television and learned that the storm was the worst in Sinaloa's history with record rains, but the total precipitation was never mentioned.
I went downstairs to the bar and the manager came by and found someone to serve me. I struggled up to the bar, then a baseball team came in and when the players noticed I was walking strangely, they came over to see what was wrong. They were naturally talking to me in Spanish but but I pointed to my knees and made a horrible face, to which they smiled with understanding. Three left and moments later, returned with their team trainer who brought his bag and spoke English. I told him what the problem was and he took a towel and mixed a home-made compound on it then applied it over both my knees, which smelt horrible. He then wrapped my knees and instructed me not to take them off for two days and then wash it off. I told him that I would be back in Mexicali in two days and he said that in three, I would be back to my normal self. I pulled out an American five dollar bill but he refused and said he was happy to help a new friend.
A little later, I put my bags in the lobby for the train then checked out. My knees were beginning to feel better as I boarded the bus bound for El Fuerte and we departed Los Mochis, travelling northwest and crossing the Ferrocaril del Pacifico and Chihuahua Pacifico tracks just north of Sufragio before we passed to the east of San Blas and stayed some distance away from the CHP line as we made our way through the Sinaloa countryside. We crossed the CHP tracks again a short distance from the El Fuerte station before arriving at our destination. Our tour group was half the original size as those negative people had had enough so Bill arranged for them to be put on the first class train back to Mexicali late last night.
I found a restaurant that Sandy had told me about to be able to have a good meal and had a very nicely-prepared steak along with a couple of margaritas and as the waitress noticed I was not walking too well, suggested I sit out by the fountain and she would serve me there. It was a lovely location in the middle of the courtyard with ample palm trees for shade so I was happy. The sun was starting to set so I made my way back to the bus and was walking almost normally when I heard the sound of a basketball being dribbled. I followed the sound which led me down a hallway between buildings into a courtyard with a basketball court and a group of ten men playing. When they saw me, they tossed me the ball and I successfully threw the ball into the hoop from twenty feet away. One of the men caught the rebound and passed the ball back to me and this time I threw it from eighteen feet. Rebound, pass and shoot with me hitting ten in a row. One of the players asked me what else I could do and I forgot about my knees, took a few dribbles on the move then did my 'ball around the back and shoot under my right leg shot' which went in. Everyone cheered and I heard a call to show them how to do that, so I demonstrated the shot in slow motion and let them try it. There was a lot of laughter as they attempted it over the next hour and by the time I left, seven of my students had mastered my shot and I proudly walked out of the courtyard.
I returned to the bus and Sandy gave me the responsibility of looking after their dog, Isaac, who was not usually on the trips. He was a very nice and loving creature and I took to himb. He sat on the seat next to me and put his head on my lap as we drove back to Sufragio. Bill stopped by to say hello and was surprised I did not ride with him from Los Mochis but I explained that I wanted to see El Fuerte and that my knees were feeling better. Sandy then arrived and thanked me for taking such good care of Isaac and I went to my room in "Rio Magico" and called it a night.
12/31/1990 The next morning, my thirty-third birthday, I woke up lazy and decided to stay in the comfortable bed.
I looked out the window into the desert to try to work out where we were and realized that we were on the Pacifico Railroad north of Empalme.
Before Hermosillo, I photographed the lake from the vestibule. It was a little sad that this trip was nearing the end, as was the year, the same year that saw me take my first-cross country Amtrak journey. I reflected on my life and how lucky I was to be doing this. I fell back into a deep relaxing sleep that lasted until we almost arrived in Benjamin Hill.
The trip across the Sonora Baja California was quick as I spent most of it in my room. At Puerto Penasco, we met the eastbound first class train and a work extra and while crossing the Altar Desert, I went to the lounge car to settle my tab and was greeted with a nice version of "Happy Birthday", a tuna fish cake with candles on it, which I had no trouble blowing out. We arrived at Mexicali at 6:30 PM and taxied back to the Hotel Lucerna, where I watched some football and at half-time, removed my knee wrappings as instructed. At 10:00 PM, I went downstairs to a New Year's Eve party and stayed until just after midnight, when I called it a night.
1/1/1991 I met Bill and Sandy who had arranged with a couple to drive me back across the border to AA Parking and my car. Bill offered an apology for the imperfect trip but I dismissed it, telling him that I loved every every minute of it, it was a great adventure and I now had a really good story to tell. He then offered me a future trip at $300, which I accepted then suggested Easter. We shook hands on it then I said my goodbyes to both of them and crossed the border in the back seat of a car, never being asked anything, and was dropped off at AA Parking to claim my car which was covered with a thick coating of mud. I managed to get the front and rear windows clean enough so I could drive home and stopped in Brawley at a coin-operated car wash, then drove home via the east side of the Salton Sea and arrived in time for the Rose Bowl game, thus ending this Mexican Adventure.
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