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In March 2001, I spent four weeks in Mexico with my girlfriend. We wanted to travel the country using public transportation and wondered how far we could get. As flights to Mexico were quite expensive, we decided to go to San Diego, California, and start our trip from there. We spent two nights at the Ocean Beach Int’l Hostel on Newport Avenue and then went to Tijuana, a place where you lock your car even when you’re inside. It was quite shocking and very sad to see hundreds of poor Mexicans and indigenous people from the whole country selling their goods at the busiest border crossing of the world.
After a 12 hour bus drive through the night, we reached Guaymas, a small town on the pacific coast of Mexico. Three of the four hotels mentioned in our guide book have been shut down in the meantime, so we stayed at the one and only Hotel del Puerto which was a very nice place to stay actually. The double room was at about 140 pesos (15 US$), which means that there are cheaper ways to have a shower. The city of Guaymas wasn’t that fascinating but there was a nice beach about 2 miles north where you can watch sea lions and dolphins if you’re lucky. From the city of Los Mochis, south of Guaymas, you can board a train to Chihuahua that will take you through the Barranca Del Cobre, a huge copper canyon, probably the most beautiful spot in the desert-like landscape of Northern Mexico. The train goes through 88 tunnels and over 38 bridges. But as this train only leaves twice a week and we did not want to spend some days in Los Mochis, we headed south to Mazatlan.
Mazatlan is located on the pacific coast, it should be easy to spend some days there without getting bored. A must see is La Isla de la Piedra (Stone Island), a peninsula with an as-far-as-you-can-see white sand beach of about 30 miles. If you leave the few bars and tourists behind, you can enjoy an endless lonely beach. Another great sight is El Faro, a lighthouse that sits on small hill above the harbor of Mazatlan. From up there you have a great view on the beautiful Old Town and with a good visibility, you can see the blue mountains of the Sierra Madre. The Old Town of the ciy is very beautiful, you can stroll through the narrow streets and numerous markets for days! We stayed at the Hotel Lerma which was actually a very nice and cheap place between the beach and the Old Town.
A very scenic route is the road from Mazatlan to Durango. The first couple of hours, the bus is climbing from sea level up to some 4.000 feet, the second part of the about 8 hours drive leads you over the plateau of the Sierra Madre where Durango is located. The landscape, huge green mountains and the desert plains, is very impressive and bears some overwhelming views, the trip alone justifies to visit Durango. In my opinion, Durango itself is not that great as it is described in the guide books. Perhaps it is necessary to get to know the city better than we did.
…to be continued.
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From North to South (Part I) 09/12/2001 23:13
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