To begin with, here's a map of the area where we were:
We flew in to the airport at Los Mochis, which is marked by the lower left pin. The other three pins show the locations of the three hotels we stayed at; one in the town of El Fuerte, and the other two in the Copper Canyon region. Copper Canyon (w) is actually a group of six separate canyons, covering an area of about 25,000 square miles. Obviously, we only saw a small portion of it.
Getting there turned out to be quite an adventure. Los Mochis is a very small airport, and there are no direct flights from Los Angeles. Flying from L.A. would have involved an overnight layover in Mexico City or Guadalajara - both of which are far out of the way. So instead, we took a Greyhound bus to Tijuana, and flew to Los Mochis from the Tijuana airport. And as it happened, we still had an overnight layover - we caught the bus at 8:20 the night before, which got us to Tijuana at 1:35 in the morning, and then we had to wait until 11:40 AM for the flight to Los Mochis. And to make matters worse, the bus stop at the airport was a very long walk from the departure terminal. It was a long night.
We were met at the airport in Los Mochis by our guide, Juan:
Juan is a professional tour guide hired by the travel agency to be our guide for the week. He's a local guy - born and raised in El Fuerte, and currently living in Los Mochis - and very interesting and knowledgeable about the region. We were in good hands.
Juan had a driver ready to drive us to El Fuerte (w), a drive of about an hour and a half. Along the way, I took a picture of this rock formation, just because it looked interesting:
We arrived at our hotel, the Hotel Mansion Serrano:
...and checked into our room:
...and didn't do much else for the rest of the day except to rest up from our travels. We met up wth Lucia and Esmond, who had arrived the day before:
...and we were introduced to Blanca:
After getting settled in, I wandered around and took pictures. The hotel had a nice courtyard with grass and trees:
...and a swimming pool:
...which we never used, even though Terry had brought her swimsuit, and the temperature was over 100 degrees Farenheit (38 Celsius).
I saw what appeared to be a poolside bar:
...but when I asked what time the bar opened, I was told that there was no bar. I guess it was just decoration.
The courtyard had a couple of "conversation pits" - chairs and couches arranged in a circle around a coffee table (and the mosquitos enjoyed conversing with us):
There was a small cafe where we ate breakfast:
...and an additional dining area just outside the cafe (but we always ate inside the cafe, because it had air conditioning).
The hotel had several artistic touches, some of which can be seen in the previous pictures (like the collection of decorative plates on the back wall of the cafe). For example, there was this painting on the wall of Lucia and Esmond's room:
...this mural on the back wall of the courtyard, made of grass and flowers:
...and these two curio cabinets filled with dolls and figurines:
I also took a stroll and took some pictures of the neighborhood:
In the afternoon, Terry and I and Lucia and Esmond walked a couple of blocks to a little coffee shop that they had found the day before. Terry says the coffee was quite good. Not being a coffee drinker, I had a mango shake, which was also very good (me gustan mucho los mangos).
In the evening after dinner, Lucia and Blanca went back to the hotel, while Terry and Esmond and I found a bank with an ATM and got some local currency. On the way back, walking down a quiet back street, I was impressed by the light shadows cast by a street lamp:
And that was it for the day.