At the airport 12 hours early
The couple had reached Los Mochis after a trip to Mexico's Copper Canyon and checked into a hotel before their flight to Mexico City the following day. Seeing 6:30 on the ticket, the writer arranged a 5 a.m. start, checked out with his wife, Karen, and took a taxi to the airport.
The ride ended in an argument over the fare. He spoke no Spanish, the driver spoke no English, and the fluctuating exchange rate had left him struggling to understand prices. When the driver wrote down the charge, it ran to many thousands of pesos. The writer reluctantly paid, left no tip and disregarded Karen's disapproving look, certain he would never encounter the driver again.
Inside the terminal, they found only a cleaner working with a mop and bucket and a pigeon overhead. Karen checked their Aero Mexico ticket: 6:30, without an a.m. or p.m. designation. Her husband had expected a 24-hour clock, on which an evening departure would appear as 18:30. They realized they had arrived for an evening flight.
The hotel was 10 miles away, and the only taxi waiting outside was the one they had just left. The writer recalls the driver's satisfied expression. Back at the hotel, he paid without protest and added a very large tip. They still needed another airport ride that afternoon, and he could not rule out having to rely on the same driver.
The story left out of the travel story
The airport episode never appeared in his original account of the journey. Looking back over 50 years of travel writing, including work published by the Boston Globe and the Washington Post, he says he cannot recall including any of his major blunders.
He contrasts that omission with Rick Steves' PBS travel segments, which finish with outtakes of verbal stumbles and other mistakes. Karen, however, has kept the family record: he says she has about a dozen embarrassing stories ready to recount, with the Mexico trip among her favorites.
The railway behind the trip
The couple had traveled to see Copper Canyon, or Barranca del Cobre, intending to take the Chepe train between Chihuahua and Los Mochis, on the Sea of Cortez. In the writer's account, the 390-mile journey takes about 13 hours and descends 7,000 feet, negotiating 80 tunnels and nearly 40 bridges. He describes Copper Canyon as four times the size of the Grand Canyon and, in some places, twice as deep.
Copper Canyon is actually a network of about 20 connected canyons, Mexico News Daily explains. Six rivers carved them over millions of years. The name refers to the greenish, copper-like coloring of the steep canyon walls, not to copper mining.
The route crosses the territory of the Indigenous Rarámuri people, also known as the Tarahumara. According to Mexico News Daily, they continue to live in the canyons, and some share food, crafts and traditions with passengers along the railway.
Building the Chihuahua al Pacífico railway took more than six decades. Mexico News Daily reports that work began in 1898 but repeated interruptions, including the Mexican Revolution, pushed completion to 1961, at a cost of roughly US$90 million. The Independent reported in July 2025 that the line opened in 1961 as part of a planned connection between the US Midwest and Mexico's port of Topolobampo. That larger route was never finished.
Today's Chepe services
The journey now has two distinct services. According to The Independent, the luxury tourist-oriented Chepe Express began operating in 2018 alongside the older, basic Chepe Regional. Each runs just a few times a week.
Mexico News Daily identifies the roughly nine-hour Los Mochis-to-Creel stretch, marketed as the Chepe Express route, as the most popular and scenic part of the line. Passengers heading onward to Chihuahua city must change to the Chepe Regional for about another six hours.
Travelers can also spread the journey over several days. Mexico News Daily reports that El Chepe tickets permit as many as three stopovers without an additional charge, provided passengers choose those stops in advance.
