Link to more photos. View the photos individually to see the captions.
We took a group tour to Copper Canyon (Barrancas del Cobre) in Mexico. The weather was good: mild temperatures and daytime rain only twice.
Copper Canyon is remote, requiring several days to get to either end. Our tour began in Phoenix, continued by bus to San Carlos on the Sea of Cortez in the state of Sonora, then past the giant Mayo Deer Dance statue to El Fuerte in the state of Sinaloa. Dinner included a Zorro performer, because the hotel claims to be on the site of the birthplace of Zorro.
In the morning, we enjoyed a gentle float trip on the El Fuerte River. After lunch, a female version of the traditional Yaqui Deer Dance, followed by nine other dancers, each with an elaborate costume, and ending with a female Zorro dancer. (Click here to view a separate photo album of all these dancers.)
That night, our tour director Carlos told us he had been in pain for the last two days, and was now diagnosed with appendicitis! He said he was leaving for the nearest hospital, an hour away, and we would have a new tour director the next evening. We once had a tour with unplanned bus changes, but this was the first time we experienced a change of tour director! (Carlos appears in the background of several photos of the dancers; probably the best shot of him is in the photo of the female Zorro dancer.)
The next day we learned that Carlos had a laparoscopic appendectomy and was doing OK. Directorless, the hotel staff took us to begin the canyon train ride, frequently along the very edge of the canyon, finishing at the small town of Barrancas in the state of Chihuahua, where we stayed in a hotel on the rim of the Copper Canyon, at an elevation of 7,300 feet. While there, we also shopped from the indigenous Tarahumara artisan vendors.
When we left the canyon, we returned to our bus and traveled to the city of Chihuahua. There, our new tour director, after only a few days, had been speaking too loudly too long and now had laryngitis, so we got one more tour director to speak for him. At our farewell group dinner that night, we were serenaded by a Mexican band. The next day, we went to El Paso, where the tour ended.
