misadventures in mexico

By anders pearson 24 Oct 2004

here’s the full report on the trip to mexico with lani and anastasiya.

no one was killed or kidnapped and overall it was a good time. Copper Canyon and Mexico in general (outside the border towns and spring break type areas) are highly recommended for vacation spots. the main downside to the trip was that we spent a lot of time travelling.

lani’s mom is a flight attendent so we are able to fly pretty cheaply. the catch is that we have to fly standby and that means that things don’t always work out like planned.

the plan was for me to fly down to austin on friday afternoon (with connections in DC and atlanta) where lani and anastasiya were already waiting, then we would fly to El Paso on saturday morning and take a bus across the border to Juarez and then a 10 hour bus down to Creel. i managed to get on a 3:30 flight to DC. the last flight from atlanta to austin was at 10pm. to catch it, i had to get on a flight to atlanta that left DC before 7. didn’t get on the 5:00. didn’t get on the 6:00. didn’t get on the 7:00. the 8:00 was delayed till 8:30 but i finally got on it. since i’d missed the last flight out of atlanta, lani’s mom picked me up at the airport (she lives outside atlanta) and i spent the night giving her guitar lessons. first thing in the morning, i got on a flight to austin.

we spent saturday in austin while lani finished up stuff at her lab. there were 5:30 and 7:30 flights from austin to el paso (with a connection in dallas). we made it to the airport at about 5pm. one of the other catches with flying standby on the airline’s dime is that there is a dress code. no jeans. no open toe shoes. etc. lani and i have flown standby many times so we’re used to it. this was anastasiya’s first time though. since it had never affected lani or i before, we were unaware that lip rings are also against the dress code. to make a long story short, i had to extract it in the airport with some needle-nose pliers. by the time that was taken care of though, we’d missed the 5:30 flight. the ticket agent assured us that the 7:30 had plenty of empty seats though. 2 hours later, we discovered that there were exactly 2 empty seats on the plane (and 3 of us).

flights out of austin the next morning were all oversold (although the dallas to el paso leg was fine). so we had no choice but to rent a car and drive to dallas overnight. none of us had really slept more than a few hours in the last few days, but somehow we made it without killing ourselves (though the overnight drive through texas certainly had its share of David Lynch moments).

from there on it was pretty smooth sailing. we got to El Paso and got on the bus to cross the border. i had my first injury of the trip then. the bus had little TVs hanging down from the ceiling with nice sharp corners. one of which put a nice dent in my skull and some blood in my hair. but it didn’t hurt too much and we made it across the border and got onto a sweet bus to Chihuahua. probably the nicest bus i’ve ever been on. the seats were comfy, there was plenty of legroom, and LCD television screens (that were nowhere near my head).

we got into Chihuahua at about 6:30 at night only to find that there were no more buses to Creel until the next morning. so we found a dirty $10 hotel (the Lonely Planet guide recommended it as about the best in town) with no hot water, had some dinner and wandered around town for a bit (but it was sunday night and there wasn’t much open).

the bus to Creel wasn’t nearly as nice and turned out to be a local bus so it stopped at every little town on the way. it even stopped to pick up people on the side of the highway. 6 hours later, we finally made it to Creel. dropped off our stuff at the hotel (the same one that every other Lonely Planet reader in town was staying at). got some lunch. then decided to rent some mountain bikes and explore the sites around town.

it only took about 20 minutes for that to turn out to be a really bad idea. i was riding behind lani and anastasiya, we were going downhill at a pretty good clip. they stopped. i squeezed the brakes as hard as i could. the front brakes apparently worked really well–the front wheel stopped completely but the rest of the bike and my body continued on at full speed. after flying over my handlebars at full speed, according to lani, i did a pretty impressive aikido style roll on the pavement (tucker would be proud). the roll seemed to have prevented any kind of head injury which was good because they didn’t rent us helmets with our bikes. still though, a high speed somersault on pavement isn’t recommended. i left a nice amount of palm and knee skin on the pavement and couldn’t really move my arms through their full range.

adrenaline’s a hell of a drug though and i was feeling surprisingly spry after my little dive so we kept riding. unfortunately lani’s bike started having some mechanical issues so we didn’t make it too far. after a few hours though, i started feeling more and more pain in my wrists, elbows, and generally my entire body. it was starting to get dark, we had to ride a few miles back along a winding mountain road with no real visibility, our bikes didn’t seem to have any sort of reflectors (i started looking after that and never saw a single bicycle with a reflector for the entire trip) and i was wearing my usual “invisible pedestrian” costume (all black), so we turned around and headed back. my wrists and arms kept getting worse and by the time we were back in town, i couldn’t move my left arm at all or put any weight on it and my left wrist was massively swollen. my right arm was only a little better but i was able to use it to steer the bike (with some pain).

we got some bandages and antiseptic and cleaned my wounds up and immobilized my left arm the best we could. at dinner that night and all the next day, i could barely get the fork to my mouth and drinking the last half of a bottle of beer was painful (but i did it dammit!). on tuesday i was way too sore to go anywhere but anastasiya took a bus to Batopilas (a town at the bottom of the canyons; Creel is up near the top in the mountains). lani and i just stayed in Creel and had a nice siesta to catch up on the sleep we missed with all the traveling, walked around town a bit, and spent the evening at the town’s only bar drinking tequilla.

by wednesday my right arm had more or less returned to usefulness. lani and i went on a hike up to the hill above town, then we took a bus to Divisadero, which is a nice high point that you can see most of the canyons from. the bus there cost about $3 and was a 1 hour ride over twisting turning mountain roads. the view there was absolutely stunning. Copper Canyon is four times the size of the grand canyon and even deeper. from Divisadero, you can pretty much see it all at once.

unfortunately, we didn’t realize that the bus we came to Divisadero on was the last one going back to Creel for the day. so instead of taking the bus back, we had to wait about 2 and a half hours for the train that (luckily) was heading that way. the train took about 2 hours to cover the same distance and cost over $10.

thursday morning we took a bus back to Chihuahua (another annoying local bus) and spent the afternoon there wandering around the city taking pictures, eating street food and spent some time online. we tried a different hotel that night and it was even more special than the one before. this one had hot water but the toilet was missing a seat. after anastasiya reported seeing cockroaches in her room, lani was so freaked out that she insisted we sleep with the light on. somehow we survived the night without being eaten alive by killer cockroaches or anything and got on a bus back to Juarez and El Paso first thing in the morning. we didn’t even have any trouble crossing the border.

anastasiya had actually purchased a ticket out of El Paso, so she got right on a plane and out of texas. there were no more free seats on planes for lani and i though so we got a hotel room and explored the strip malls of El Paso on foot. not too exciting. we finally managed to escape El Paso the next morning and made it back to our respective cities.

i can more or less move my arms now but they still hurt like crazy if i try to put too much weight on them. i hope to someday be able to do pushups again. i’ve also still got some massive, ugly bruises on my elbows and the skin hasn’t fully grown back on my knee yet. but really, it was a fun vacation. i highly recommend it. the people were all really friendly and helpful, the scenery was gorgeous, and the food was fantastic (and even edible for a couple vegetarians). if you go, you may want to skip the mountain bikes though if you have my coordination and ability to injure yourself.

and, of course, pictures are here.

Tags: vacation mexico copper canyon