Arriving in Mexico’s Sierra Madre - The Kindness of Strangers

Creel, Mexico

February 21, 2022 (Day 118) — Somewhere in the Sierra Madre

When the El Chepe Express finally rumbled  to a stop in Creel, we had ascended thousands of vertical feet into Mexico's Sierra Madre and arrived at the end of the line.

It was about six in the evening. Forty-seven degrees. The last winter sunlight slipped beneath a sky full of white clouds racing over the mountains.

Then the doors opened.

Hundreds of passengers poured onto the narrow platform. Our first-class car was only one of a dozen. The rest emptied in seconds, and suddenly everyone was trying to occupy the same few yards of concrete. The passengers weren’t arriving so much as escaping.

We wrestled our backpacks and suitcases through the crush until we finally reached the train’s baggage area. From there we found the baggage area, speared our bags and looked around like a couple of kids searching for their parents in an amusement park.

We were utterly lost. No cell signal. No GPS. No map. Just two travelers standing in a tiny railroad town high in the Mexican mountains wondering what, exactly, happens next.

Travel brochures rarely mention this moment, but it happens more often than you'd think. Especially if you’re never traveling by air and exploring the old-fashioned way — slow. We had reached another one of those moments where we had reached our destination but hadn’t actually arrived anywhere.

My plan—if you could call it that—was to find some mode of transportation and somehow communicate the words Villa Mexica, the hotel we'd located online. I had no confidence in my Spanish, and even less confidence that the hotel was close enough for anyone to know it.

Then, through the milling crowd, I spotted a man raising a hand-lettered sign.

"Villa Mexica."

I couldn’t believe it.

I waved. He nodded vaguely with his arms beyond the crowd, then vanished. For several minutes I wondered if I'd imagined the whole encounter.

Nevertheless I shouldered us down to a battered concrete staircase where the man with the sign—Xavier—had magically re-appeared  beside an aging white passenger van already half full.

Dumb luck, But sometimes that's how travel works.

Over the years Cyndy and I have accumulated more lucky breaks than any reasonable people deserve. Every time I think our supply must surely be exhausted, another little miracle wanders into view and rescue us. We climbed in.

Xavier slammed the van into reverse, found first gear with a practiced shove, and we rattled away from the station.

Out the rear window I caught one last glimpse of El Chepe, sitting quietly on its rails in the fading light.

I gave it a silent salute and then we bounced on to Via Mexica.

Related work: Riding El Chepe Express Through Copper Canyon