“Those Mexicans are out to hi-jack your car, steal your dollars, poison your tortillas and eat your Hershey’s”. To some, merely popping over the border to order a taco in Chihuahua amounts to ‘Operation Certain Death’. We could not agree less with that particular approach, but we’d be a bit naïve to not recognise some travel risks. To cope, we’ve developed our own finely-tuned BSMS (Brave-or-Stupid Monitoring System). Every overlander has to tune their own personal sense of ‘brave or stupid’ and Copper Canyon posed a small challenge to ours.
Let the Train take the Strain
The Mexican tourist board would encourage you to take one of the world’s most iconic train trips through the Copper Canyon region… enjoy the predictably spectacular views, try an organised ‘extreme sport’ from the canyon-side adventure park, and visit pre-allocated villages to learn about local indigenous culture. Although the train is said to be staffed with plain-clothed police officers openly armed with automatic rifles (“for your peace of mind… you understand”), they’re understandably less keen for you to learn about the lawless drugs cartels’ activities and their absolute control of certain areas around the canyon (more on that later).
The train trip was top of our list as we drove up to the mountains from the unfeasible heat of the coast. But y’know… plans! Turns out, it’s not so easy to book seats on the train once you’re up there. Our attempts proved futile, so we had a go at some other stuff around the canyon: visiting the view-points, parking-up overnight on the canyon rim; zip-lining a 2.5km stretch across the gorge 😮 and driving a long, hard-core 4×4 trail though the remote canyon in what may, or may not, be cartel country. Once we’d done all that, we figured the train couldn’t possibly compete. So, Copper Canyon Train Co. – you had your chance to relieve us of our hard-earned cash and you blew it! Loooooser!
Brave or Stupid No.1
Our first ‘brave or stupid’ moment came in the canyon-rim adventure park where the zip-lining options caught our eye: (i) a series of seven short(ish) cables hopping around the canyon edge; or (ii) a single 2.5km zip-wire across the canyon from rim to rim. This was the longest single-span zip-wire in the world until those never-to-be-beaten Emiratis recently put up an even longer one in the UAE.
Beforehand – stupid? 
Afterwards – Brave! 🙂
We chose the single biggie – Ziprider. Not that the seven-series didn’t tempt us, but frankly the precarious-looking hanging bridges to be negotiated between the various zip-line points worried us more than the zip-lining itself. So we signed our lives away on the legal disclaimer (me telling a teeny fib that I met the required minimum height of 160cm when I’m actually only 158 cm :-0 ) and strapped up. Launching ourselves down the wire, we reached over 120kph. The first minute of the two(ish) minute escapade is breath-taking in the literal sense, stealing all awareness of the spectacularity (is that a word?) around us. The second minute allows a breath and for the spectacularity to sink-in. Before launch we wondered if we were stupid. On landing we felt brave (scroll down for a video of the ride!).
Brave or Stupid No.2
‘Brave or stupid’ conundrum No.2 took a bit more thought and research. Copper Canyon is not a single but a series of connecting canyons. Selected points on either side of the region are designated mainstream tourist zones: from Creel to Urique (via Divisadero) on the north side; and from Creel to Batopilas on the south side. Both are easily accessible on tarmac (or good, drivable gravel) roads, but most mapping shows each of these to be dead-end routes. You have to tootle down there, have a gander at the views, then return-tootle back the way you came. We hate return-tootling back the way we came.
But here’s a sneaky thing. A bit of delving in more detailed maps shows a tiny trail between these two so-called ‘dead-ends’, connecting to make it a circular route. Investigations reveal that on the plus side, it’s a spectacular route and avoids any return-tootling (did I mention we hate return-tootling?). But on the not-so-plus-side, it’s a remote, steep, often narrow and deeply rutted trail. It’s tough-going for even the most capable, high-clearance 4×4 vehicle. An even more not-so-plus thing is that it traverses an allegedly lawless zone, controlled by a drugs cartel. Hmmm… our BSMS rang an advisory ‘check this out’ warning bell here.
An adventure-tour guide in Creel confirmed our initial findings: yes the area is controlled by a drugs cartel and there is no police presence out there; but no the cartel is really not interested in tourists. Tourists are international-attention-attracting items and more trouble than they are worth to the gangs. Yes, the drive is a rough trail, but it is tackled by 4×4 enthusiasts and villages are used to seeing them pass through. His advice: stay on the main trail; stop in villages to introduce ourselves as tourists and ask their advice on routes. They will be proud and happy to help.
Setting off down the initial touristy, tarred section of the road we passed a military check-point who gave us the same advice. In the final tourist village of Urique before starting the ‘challenging’ section, we talked to another local guide and received again the same advice. Either they’re all reading from the same comedy manual, or it’s bees-knees-intelligence for our BSMS.
The challenging section of the route is only around 60km and most advised it would take six or seven hours (although one guy advised 3 hrs… maybe a bit optimistic for Cuthbert!) so we set off early. We hadn’t got very far when the trail was blocked by a young lad and his girlfriend in clapped-out, broken-down car. He wanted a push from Cuthbert to bump-start, which we duly obliged. The guy was so grateful he offered to take us to his house and reward us (bizarrely) with a baby chimpanzee. It crossed our mind that this could be some kind of set-up, but when we politely declined his monkey offer, he smiled, thanked us and cheerfully waved us on our way. A nice lad, if slightly the worse for the odd beer or two 😊.
In the next little village we did as advised and stopped to talk to a guy in the street. He was holding a two-way radio. He was friendly, chatty, helpfully pointed out directions and advised on timings. Maybe our BSMS imagination got a teeny bit carried away by thinking he could be radioing ahead to advise of in-bound tourists, but we’ll never know. Further down the trail we passed just a couple of guys hanging around the side of the road, but we just exchanged smiley greetings and continued on our way. Other than that, we encountered trillions (honest!) of spectacular views and a lot of low-range, diff-lock driving.
Just over seven hours after leaving Urique, we reached the other ‘dead-end’ tourist village of Batopilas. From here we just had a 60km tarmac road dodging the many rockfalls. At an average of less than 10kph, the challenging section had been a tiring but rewarding drive. Not once did we feel threatened, out of place, or unwelcome.
Whether ‘Jack and Jill’ overlanders following behind us should take that route is entirely down to their own personal BSMS. We could neither recommend nor advise against it. We’ve met other overlanders who considered the route; some did it, some decided against. At the very start of our overlanding we agreed that we would not take any route if either of us were unhappy. With this one, we did enough chatting around to get our BSMS comfortable. Having done it, we don’t feel either brave or stupid, we just feel sure that it was waaay better than letting the train take the strain.
