Booze, Boats and Trains

Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula was pretty much exactly what I expected, a beach resort town with a rowdy nightlife and loads of Americans. This is one of the main places in Mexico where Americans go to have fun, equivalent of what Europeans have in say Mallorca or the Greek Islands. It does get crowded but for a reason, the beaches are gorgeous and with American standards things are cheap. I found a hostel and met some fellow travellers, but may have indulged slightly too much into the nightlife and not spent as much time on the beach as I would have hoped. After a few days of this, Tony, an Australian guy and I decided to move on to the nearby San Jose Del Cabo, which had more of a relaxed vibe, however the weather wasn't optimal for beachlife so we soon moved on to the city of La Paz once again heading north. La Paz is a major porttown and the place to catch ferries heading across the Sea of Cortez to the Mexican mainland. I had hoped to get a ferry to Mazatlan but soon found out the next available one would not be for another month or so, La Paz was not the kind of place I wasn't to spend a month in so together with Tony I decided to get the following day's boat bound for Topolobambo. That night I'm not sure what happened, but something I ate or drank was not agreeing with me so the 9 hour crossing on slightly rough waters was pretty horrible. Once we got across we found accommodation and got a couple of hours sleep before setting off for the trainstation where we would get on the Copper Canyon Express.

Even if I was still feeling a bit under the weather and couldn't eat or drink anything, this was the most beautiful trainride I ever experienced, travelling through dense jungle and between narrow canyons with incredible views for 15 hours before reaching the final destination of Chihuaha. Chihuaha is famous as the birthplace of the tiny dog of the same name and has got a reputation for being quite a dangerous city, however we didn't see a single dog and the only danger we encountered was how cold it was. We spent the day walking around the colonial mansions and churches, schooled some Mexican homeboys in how to play pool and drink tequila, and then got a very long nightbus for 22 hours to the Unesco listed town of Guanajuato.

Guanajuato was a very picturesque small town with colourful houses, grand churches, theatres and townsquares nestled in a little valley. At one point this was the wealthiest city in Mexico due to the abundance of silver but today it's a quiet place, heaving with tourists. Underneath the city channels once dug to divert a river have been converted into an intricate system of underground tunnels trying to divert motor and pedestrian traffic off the cobblestoned streets above. We left the following day and got to the polar opposite, the massive capital Mexico City.