Introduction:

Joan Miano sent me email about a month earlier to tell me that she and her friend Jean are going with Elderhostel to Copper Canyon. She knew I was interested in going there, so I decided to go with them. When I signed up for the trip, I was the 36th out of 37 total participants.

Geromino Educational Travel in Arizona conducted the program. I was advised to contact AeroCalifornia for air travel from Tucson (which they pronounced Took son) to Los Mochis, Mexico, which is the starting point of our trek. I decided to go to Tucson a day earlier. I rented a car there and visited Biosphere 2. The complex was donated initially and operationally by a man from Texas. It consists of several enclosures for various research projects.  One of the few major findings was discovered when the researchers saturated the jungle enclosure with carbon dioxide, which the trees use for growth. The trees did not take more of the gas than they needed. The environment inside the enclosure remained saturated. This is similar to what humans and animals do; they do not eat when are full.

Next day at the airport, I met Joan, her friend Jean and other members of the group along with

With Joan at the edge of a cliff

our leader, John Scott (Scotty). We all flew to Los Mochis. We were transported by taxi to Santa Anita Hotel in downtown for the night, and rooms were assigned to us. My roommate was Jack Christensen from Edmonds, Washington. He is a retired railroad engineer, and a good hiker. After a non-Mexican dinner, we retired to our rooms only to be out by 5:00 AM next morning to ride the train on our venture. It turned out that from my prospective, the salient features of this weeklong adventure in Mexico were the Canyon, the railroad, and the Tarahumara Indians.

Copper Canyon

The Canyon is a collection of five canyons.  Located in Chihuahua, the largest State of northern Mexico, they are deeper than the Grand Canyon.  It is believed that Copper is the largest canyon on earth. The Spaniards named the canyon “Barranca de Cobre”, Canyon of Copper. In early days of the Spanish occupation, there was a mining rush for silver and gold. Other metals were also mined, however very little was copper. It is called copper because of the color of the mountains especially at dusk.
 

The majestic Barrancas (Canyons) are very rugged and wild. The huge size of the Canyon is intimidating and commands respect.  Three rivers continue to carve these canyons.  Rio Verde (Rio means river) being the largest of the three is not navigable except for short stretches due to the rugged nature of the riverbeds. There are huge boulders that have fallen into the stream and multitudes of waterfalls. Sometimes the rivers go underground. The landscape is covered with big trees of pine, oak, and other verity. The soil is gray with little or no small vegetation, partly because spring is not the rainy season.

For comparison, the depths of the canyons in feet are:

                         Grand Canyon           4700
                         Copper Canyon         5800
                         Sinforosa Canyon     6000
                         Urique Canyon          6100

The geology of the canyons indicates that the ground is hard stone resistant to erosion. Mainly volcanic activities and ash deposits, which harden to what is called tuff, form the canyons. There are also sandstone, granite limestone, and lava deposits. They all come in different colors. Unlike Copper, the US canyons in the Colorado Plateau are formed by uplifts and carved easily by river erosion.

The Railroad:

Albert Owen, the son of a Quaker surgeon and friend of President Lincoln, was a well-connected engineer in Washington. He worked for the railroad in Colorado with Gen. Palmer. They both went to Mexico and saw a very large bay at Topolobampo just outside the present city of Los Mochis. In 1872, Owen envisioned building a railroad from New Jersey to Topolobampo in the state of Sinaloa.  This railroad would be 400 miles shorter than other means of transportation and would invigorate trade with the Orient. He presented the idea to President Grant who approved the plan, but there was no money.  Owen was suspicious of the investors in the East, so he turned to Kansas City where he got support.  The president of Mexico gave him the go ahead, but the plans did not materialize. He presented them to Arthur Stillwater in Kansas City. Stillwater was a believable and convincing man, and secured the money from investors.
 

With Wendy (left) and Poppy

Owen met an important man in Mexico, by the name of Creel, and a relative of the owner of the entire state of Chihuahua.  Owen made him vice president of the new railroad. The city of Creel was named after him. The Mexican Revolution delayed the plans. Owen finally turned to Benjamin Johnson who founded Los Mochis as a sugar plantation and a mill. By that time, depression had set in the US, followed by the war. Owen’s scheme finally died because engineers from the US and Switzerland decided that the railroad was impossible to construct.This is similar to what was said of the Yukon and White Pass Railroad in Alaska. Plans for the Copper Canyon railroad were then abandoned. Mexico took over the project and Mexican engineers finally built the railroad and completed it in 1961. The Chihuahua Pacifico Railroad (Chepe) was inaugurated.

The railroad snakes its way around the curves of the canyons with a grade of 2.5 to 4.5 percent. The 4.5 is an industry standard of maximum grade. It is very beautiful to look through the windows of the comfortable railroad car. The distance from Topolobampo to Chihuahua is 960 kilometers. Tracks were laid down to Topolobampo, but the train does not travel beyond Los Mochis.  The tracks start at sea level and climb to 7800 feet.  [Elevation chart]As it travels, the train goes through 86 tunnels, and traverses 39 bridges. The longest tunnel is one mile and makes a 180-degree turn.  The highest bridge is 315 feet, and over a mile long. At one point, the train, while ascending, makes a complete loop.  It is no doubt that Chepe is an engineering marvel. The train runs steadily and smoothly up the canyons with only one engine, sometimes making sharp turns without disturbing the passengers.
 

Three Levels of Tarcks are visible	Train Makes a complete loop

 

Tarahumara Indians

Tarahumara is pronounced “tara mara” by non-Indians and “Raramuri” by the indigenous people. The Spaniards could not pronounce the name, and so they changed it to Tarahumara. It is one of the many tribes that came from Asia of Mongoloid stock through the Bering Strait some 10,000 years ago. They are very dignified, reclusive, gentle people.  They are so soft spoken that it is hard to hear them, young or old. They have great respect for one another and are not aggressive.  The Tarahumara don’t have swear words in their native language, although they now use some Spanish swear words . They have a great sense of brotherhood and sharing. They all give a helping hand in communal work such as constructing a house, building a fence, and harvesting food. The host is expected to just give guests the traditional corn beer. It is believed that there is a population of 50,000.  Even though they belong to one tribe, they live far from one another throughout the canyons in the Sierra Madre, which is called also Sierra Tarahumara.

The Tarahumara place greater value on people than on objects.  Children are never chastised.  They are given serious responsibilities in making their decisions and treated as adults.  When they are young, children are given their own goats and pieces of land.  They can leave their homes at a young age.  The Tarahumara also developed an egalitarian society in which partners in marriage own property and inheritance.  If a marriage is not successful, it can be easily dissolved.

The Tarahumara live in widely scattered communities along a river.  The large distances and rugged terrain between any two families forced them to run from one place to another while carrying their loads.  Running and climbing were also necessary for herding.  Over the years they developed an impressive stamina for long distance running. In fact their very name means “foot runner”. Even today, they have an annual 100-mile contest for men and 60 miles for women.  One of them entered the Olympics for Mexico in the marathon race. The runner did not win, because their fame is endurance not speed. The runner continued to run past the end because he did not know when to stop.  He remarked that the course was too short.

The Tarahumara elect one man as their shaman, like a judge and a medicine man, who uses hallucinogens to predict the unknown.  Every culture uses similar techniques.  We now use profilers, without hallucinogens, who would envision a criminal for example. We also use telepathy, especially by the Navy.  The shaman cures disease and tells the people when to plant, which is usually when the moon is full.

Dress

Before they were greatly influenced by modern times, the Tarahumara dress consisted of a short skirt, diaper-like pants and long sleeve shirts and sandals for men.  The skirt was for easy running.  Women wear multiple layers of full skirts, and home woven shawls. The shawl is used as a coverlet and to carry little children by wrapping them across the shoulder.  Both wear broad head bands like the Bedouins. Children run bare foot.

Experience with the White Man:

The white man ventured into the Sierra Madre territory searching for silver and gold. For the mines, the miners confiscated the Tarahumara’s land and forced the men to work as slaves.  The Indians were considered untamed and have no rights.  It was against the Indian belief to work in the mines as they considered it to be invading the earth’s bowels. Sometimes the Indians rebelled, but they were massacred.  Some Indians then escaped deeper in the canyons seeking peaceful life.

The white man was looked upon as an invader,  not the son of god because he steals and cheats.  He is dishonest, defiles the forest, and is not willing to share.  All these attributes are against the Tarahumara culture.  Their belief is that the Tarahumara people are the sons of god (a belief they held long before the Christians arrived) and the Mexicans are the sons of the devil.

The confiscation of their land, which started in the past, continues today but at a much slower pace.  Their food production has suffered causing hunger, malnutrition and tuberculosis.  They have a 50% mortality rate among their children. In the past they were self sufficient, but now they depend on the Mexicans for handouts. In towns, they are visible selling their crafts or begging which gives them a bad reputation.

Missionaries

The Tarahumara tradition is in line with some of the Christian beliefs.  For instance, they believe that god (the one who is above, and symbolized by the sun) is their mother and father, they are the children of god, and had even used the cross in their rituals long before the arrival of the missionaries.  When the Indians encountered the missionaries, especially the Jesuits who arrived with the miners, the Tarahumara resisted because they associated the Jesuits with the miners who enslaved the Indians.  The Spanish government later expelled the Jesuits because they worked independently of the Pope.  The Tarahumara were therefore completely at the mercy of the invading miners. When the Tarahumara were freed of the Jesuits, they took from Christianity only what they liked and adapted it to their cultural heritage.  Their rituals consist mainly of dancing in which they ask for forgiveness, rain for the crops, the defeat of the devil, and ward off disease. Their peaceful life was irreparably disrupted by the intrusion of the outsiders. Attempts by the church to “help” the people only caused them anxiety and disease.  To the Indians, ringing of the church bells brought them disease. The Church tried to stop some of the Indian practices but failed. Running races (described below) were banned as it was considered idolatrous. But the sport was so ingrained in the culture, that the Christians could not stop them.

The Tarahumara experience is similar to Indians in other places such as in Alaska, Canada, Australia and the US.  Last year during the 2000 Sidney Olympic games, Australian whites apologized to the Aborigines for the treatment the whites inflected on them. In fact one of Australia’s star was an Aborigine, Catharine Freeman.

Housing

The Tarahumara used rock overhangs and caves as homes. The overhangs are covered on the outside by planks, rocks or adobe bricks which are made of sun-baked mud and straw. They are not airtight at all. The floor on which they sleep is the earth or elevated wooden planks. Bedding is animal hide or very old blankets.  The wood was cut by metallic axes which the Spanish imported. Fire is almost always present in their houses for cooking and heating. Smoke escapes through the many cracks in the walls and roof. The rock overhangs are covered with a very thick layer of black soot.
 

Food

Their diet consists mainly of CBS, Corn, Beans and Squash.  They also have wheat, barley, many fruits and nuts. While they own animals like cows and sheep, their purpose is to fertilize the land, and for milk and wool.  On important occasions, they eat live stock, The meat they usually eat comes from game, which is anything that moves.  They eat mice, squirrel, deer, insects, etc. and of course fish, but not fox, wolf or coyote.  They hunt deer not by bow and arrow, but by chasing the animal until it collapses, since the Tarahumara have great endurance.  Once they catch the deer they kill it with rocks.

Running Festivals

The Tarahumara are most famous for their long distance running. The sport of kicking a baseball size wooden ball is very popular among the men who run after the ball for a 100 miles. Women throw two interlocked hoops, which they chase for 60 miles. Races are highly organized, sometimes a year in advance.  The race is usually between two runners from different clans.  Each bare foot runner has a support person who finds the ball when it goes in the rough, and to carry a torch during the night.  The runners carry a special stick which shaped like a Chinese spoon with long handle to toss the ball out. One cannot use the hands. The course is either a loop, or a figure eight. A good racer can kick (fling) the ball with his foot while running. The women use a stick with a hook at the end to toss the ball. They too have support women during the race.

Men Race	Women Race

Many times a year, festivities are marked by heavy beer drinking and telling lewd jokes about another person’s family. Gambling and betting one’s animals are prevalent during festivals. Weather good or bad, rain or snow does not interfere with the race. In recent years the Tarahumara allowed Mestisoz (mixed blood with Mexicans) to participate in the gambling. Our Mestisoz guide, Beto told us about his how father bet his two donkeys and a cow on one race but lost.  When he went home and told his wife about the loss, she screamed at him and told him, “now you are the donkey.”
 

Beto, our  Mestisoz guide, very   personable

It is commonly known that their deficient diet causes diseases.  Then how can they have such an endurance for these grueling races?  A study was conducted and found that the game meat they consume provides them with enough protein intakes to sustain them for the sport.  What they severely lack the most is hygiene and clean water.

The races have social significance.  They are well organized, by choosing the runners, the assistants, and the racecourse. Races have religious importance.  They bring all these scattered people together to revel. The festivities provide socializing and bonding among the clans.  They give the winner gifts such as soap, clothes, money etc.  No fixed amount but it must be something.

Our Trek

Our program started early on Tuesday, April 17 in Los Mochis, which is the low terminus of the Chihuahua Pacifico Railroad, and ends in Chihuahua.  We went to the train station and had a very comfortable car.  Seats are large with good lighting from the large windows.  At 6:00 AM, the train moved without signaling as it always does.  Los Mochis, which means Place of Turtles, is a thriving town, but poverty along the train path is prevalent. The dusty city is an agricultural center.  The sugar and corn fields look healthy, and extend as far as the eye could see. It looks like a painting.  There is also a sugar mill. In 1903, an American, Benjamin Johnson established the town there because of its fertile land to produce sugar, and its close proximity to the port of Topolobampo. Its architecture and culture are therefore American.

There are also many fields of marigold which is used for chicken feed. The fields are beautiful expanse with their solid orange colors.  It reminded me of the yellow rapeseed fields I saw on the bicycle trips in France and Denmark. Houses along the tracks were no more than shacks  for the poor, with laundry hanging on lines in the dusty wind.  Land looks fertile at times, and also bare with scrub brush at others.
 

As we approached the mountains, which are very rugged and awesome looking, we saw lots of cactus   plants, and unimpressive looking trees. As the train began to climb from sea level, it snaked around with the mountain’s topography. We went through many tunnels, which are sometimes close to one another, and over bridges. Some members of the group could not look through the windows knowing we were crossing a bridge. It felt like being on an airplane.
 

We did stand outside between cars to feel nature. We were warned not to stick our heads out because tree branches were sometimes close to the car, and one can suffer severe injury to the head and face.  It was hard to take pictures from the moving train and I had to rely on post cards, which are not plentiful.

At about 7:00 AM, we were called by our guides for breakfast in the dining car.  It was very nice.  The usual fare there is eggs, meats and beans.  The other choice was pancakes, which I had.  On this trip, I had more pancakes than I ate in two years combined.  Coffee was excellent.

The single engine train continued climbing along the mountains without hesitation.  At times, it was hard to see the mountain tops because they were so high.  When we reached Temoris, we could see three levels of the standard gauge tracks.  We were high along the mountain and could easily see the switchback tracks way down below.  Vegetation changed with the climb; trees were mostly different varieties of pine and oak.  Their color was bright green.

We reached our first destination at Bahuichivo, at about 1 PM.  Important points along the tracks are marked by kilometer numbers with zero at Chihuahua and 920 at Los Mochis. Bahuichivo was at marker 668. Tunnels and bridges are also numbered. We rode a bus to our hotel 11 miles away, which took an hour.  Roads away from the major cities are all dirt, not paved.  The road was full of holes and rocks.  The bus looked like an old school bus.  Our luggage went separately in a truck.  Elderhostel is usually careful not to take chances with the members.  This bus did not meet the usual standards, but this was the best available.
 

Mission Hotel in Cerocahui

We finally reached our destination city Cerocahui (serro ka wi), which is Beto’s home. We stayed two days in the Mission Hotel, where all the rooms are on first floor around a rectangular courtyard.  At the end of the day in the afternoon, many of us would sit in front of the rooms on antique chairs under a canopy in front of the rooms.  Each one of us was reading a book.  It looked like a convent.  Our first action was to have lunch; tasty lentil soup, chicken and home made noodles.  Also tortillas and home made salsa were always present at every meal, like salt and pepper.  I ate more of them in one week than I did in my entire life.  Dessert was custard, which is the common dish.

Cerocahui is a village of 2000.  It reminds me so much of my hometown of Qalqilya in the olden days.  It did not have any freshly painted or even nice looking houses. It has all dirt roads, people talk to one another, and the young hang around at different places.  We walked to Beto’s farm, which is small with a small house.  His family lives now in Creel where there are better schools for his children.  The farm is looked after by his relative. Beto inherited the land which was owned first by his grandfather following the land reform.  The whole state of Chihuahua used to belong to the Creel family.  The government took it for reform.  There is a cooperative to oversee the land, which cannot be sold except with the permission of the cooperative.
 
 

Adding Water to Radiator

After breakfast, we rode the bus on the same rough dirt road. When the engine got hot, the driver  fills the radiator which has no cap, with water. We visited Tarahumara “house” under a cliff on the way to Urique (or ree kay) Canyon.  The rugged gorge is huge in size and depth. At the bottom is a town by the same name and also a river.  The forested canyon had little vegetation, due to the dry season.  We visited a Tarahumara house and a little farm.  The house had two small rooms, the large one is 20 by 10 feet, and the adjacent small room is about 10 by 10, occupied by what looked like the grandmother.  The house was built with adobe blocks and tin roof.  It had only a few household items with a dirt floor.  There was a woman in the big room weaving baskets. Outside, the family was brewing corn beer.
 

Their land was ready for seeding.  There were children and women but no men.  The men go to work in towns when they are not farming.  Another house we visited in Creel was up high on the side of the mountain.  It was under a cliff overhang and covered by adobe blocks and wooden planks.  Smoke was coming out of the walls.  There were a few items placed on earthen floor.  One room of 7 by 7 feet had a raised bed with a mattress and blanket which seemed to have been left by the Spaniards 200 years ago.  We asked about bathroom, and the answer was any place around.  It is hard to believe that people live like that.  They desperately need adequate hygiene.  To protect their chickens from foxes and coyotes, they build poultry sheds off the ground with a plank to serve as a chicken walkway.  It is removed at night to prevent the predators from reaching the birds.
                              Cerocahui                                             Creel

The bus chugged along to a cliff overlooking the Urique Canyon, where we had a delicious picnic steak lunch.  The Mission Hotel prepared the lunch, as well as many other things such as the bus for transportation. The cliff must have been 2000 feet high, with a sharp vertical wall.  We continued our travel after lunch when the driver stopped. He discovered the wireless radio was missing.  There was no place on the narrow road for the bus to turn around, so he and Beto walked back to the picnic cliff to look for the radio.  Eight of us decided to hike up the road until the bus caught up with us, which it did about 40 minutes later with the radio.

Our next destination was Creel at train marker 565 KM and altitude of 7500 feet.  We had a box lunch at the train station sitting in the shade of a large water tank on high stilts.  We then rode the Chepe for three hours for a distance of 65 miles.  The climb was grueling for the train, traveling along the sides of the gorges, through the successive tunnels and over bridges.  The route at times was carved through the mountain with rock walls close to the train.  The rocks look like crystal with different muted colors of dark and light shades of brown, bronze, gray and white.  At one place, three canyons converged which created an awesome sight.  Along the way, the train made short schedules stops.  Every time we stopped, the Tarahumara women and children [Pix]converged on the train to sell their baskets.

We arrived at our hotel in Creel in the afternoon, where we saw black top roads for the first time since we left Los Mochis.  From the hotel ( Hotel Casadas) vantage point, there was a mountain of steep grade near by.  Four of us (my roommate Jack, Ellie West and Arlene Lopaz from California) decided to hike up the mountain.  We did not go to the peak because of the time constraint.  The next day, Jack went to the peak by himself.  The mountain is rocky with loose dirt.  While hiking, we felt very safe as we did throughout the trip even when I ventured by myself.  Mexican people are very polite, and friendly; they don’t fit the stereotype.

The next morning, we hiked a two mile trail to see the Casade waterfall.  We were trekking in a valley with huge boulders shaken free by earthquakes and volcanoes.  The path is fairly nice with some rough segments.  I would rate it as moderate.  The rocks are black lava and pitted.  A small and shallow river occupied the bottom of the valley.  All along the way, there were Tarahumara women or children weaving and selling their baskets and shawls.  When we reached the fall, the flow was weak because of the dry season.   When the water is normal, the fall would be impressive in size and background.
 
              Arlene (front) and Elie Hiking                      Waterfall (postcard)

We returned to the bus which took us to a Tarahumara Christian Church.  It is a crude building with a warped plank floor that moved when stepped upon.  There was an Indian man there who played music for us.  His instrument was an S shaped tree branch of three-inch diameter.  Three strings are stretched and tied at both ends.  He held one end with his left hand and the other end with his wide opened mouth.  With his right hand fingers, he plucked the strings.  It sounded like a fiddle with an echo.

Our lunch was a picnic prepared by Beto’s wife and children.  She had waist-high portable natural gas stoves to grill the meat and bake the tortillas. We had bananas and tasty cookies for desert.  It was a beautiful setting among the trees in the forest.

On the morning of Saturday April 21, we had one last lecture by our guide Scotty on the running of the Tarahumara.  Then we took the bus back to Divisadero at Marker 622 KM. The black top road was winding along the very scenic mountains.  We stopped for a picnic at a ledge overlooking a picturesque canyon, which is frequently used for post cards.  Weather was very nice and comfortable as it was for most the trip.  In Divisadero we visited their open market by the train station, which is usually the center of activities in towns along the railroad.  Some vendors were cooking and making what looked like delicious and tempting tortilla sandwiches.  We were cautioned however by our guides and travel literature not to indulge in these delicacies.
 

Selling  to Passengers

We continued our bus ride back on a bumpy road for a short distance to Posada Barranca where we stayed in a luxury hotel, Mirador.  The hotel overlooked a convergence of three canyons. The hotel had a single row of rooms built in three ascending staircase-like levels that followed the terrain.  This design affords all rooms good view of the canyonsand there were no elevators.  There was a good Mexican singer in the lounge.  The bus, the hotels and food service belonged to one company.
 

Hotel Mirador on a cliff

We went for an easy two-hour hike in the afternoon to a place where there is a big rock, called the Balancing Rock.  Beto stood on the rock, which is at the edge of the cliff overlooking the canyons, and swayed side to side.  A slip would take him a few thousand feet straight down.  It was scary to see him doing it. Ellie, Arlene and I went with him to the edge, but not onto the rock.
 

Beto on the Balancing Rock

The next morning we visited a Tarahumara house where a 100-year old man lived with his family.  He sang and danced for us.  Along the trail, it is not unusual to see a Tarahumara kid sitting on a rock doing nothing. After that short hike, some of us hiked for additional hour, which was very pleasant, to see the canyons.
 

                                                        Tarahumara Children

 Drinking water

The early railroad pioneers got sick in Mexico because of the water. We were cautioned about drinking tap water, and had the bottled type instead. In hotels and restaurants we were always supplied with bottles.  Hotels also had large filtered water jugs stationed at convenient places for the guest to refill their bottles.

Mexican food

Mexican food is very common in the US especially in the southwest, but it is Americanized.  It is nice to see it in its own natural indigenous setting.  Home made tortillas and salsa are always present at every meal.  Each establishment makes its own salsa, and therefore there are no two that are alike, and the salsa is not hot.  At breakfast, in addition to eggs and meats, there is chilaquiles (looks like lasagna with tortilla chips), and the ever present refried beans.  It is served as a side dish like grits in the South. A different variation is a fried egg placed over a tortilla with sautéed tomatoes and grated cheese. The usual dessert is custard, and to a lesser extent, three-milk cake, which is gritty cake soaked with milk.  Tortilla soup is also very common. It is broth with tortilla pieces like pasta.  A lovely dish is cactus leaves.  The tender thick leaves are cut into small cubical pieces and sautéed.  In general, the Mexican food tends to be fried in heavy oil, cheese and tomatoes.  Therefore I avoided many of the dishes that looked greasy or fried, such as refried beans, and fried stuffed jalapeno peppers.  I ate salsa frequently and had pancakes for breakfast several times.

Ay Chihuahua !!

“Ay Chihuahua !!” is a very common expression used at times of surprise encounters, such as when a lost item was suddenly discovered.  It can mean right on!, got you!, etc. Beto used it frequently with us.  It sounded so natural when he said it, and we would always echo it and laugh.
 
 

88-year old Judson with Scotty

Conclusion

The train, the Tarahumara, and the canyons were indeed fascinating.  I would have liked to spend more time with the Indians to experience their gentle culture.  The group of participants was larger than I like, because I could not interact with all the participants. Most of the time I was with the hiking folks.  I wished there were more hikes than what we did.  The food was a little problem, but I managed to have enough.  I was fascinated with an intelligent and very aware 88 year old participant named Judson.  He was frail, but was always there even when terrain was rough and some people chose not to go.  The only time he did not participate was on long hikes.  The trip was very good but not as great as my trip to the canyons in Utah.

Spanish History in Mexico