All aboard for Mexico's Copper Canyon

Mexico’s Copper Canyon and its various tourism offerings were in the spotlight last night, as agents were treated to a whirlwind rail tour of the unique region.

The event, organized by the Mexico Tourism Board, featured a presentation by Juan Rodriguez, director of Mexico Adventures Inc., a company which offers Mexico travel packages including tours with Chepe, the country’s only operating passenger train. While there has been talk of reducing the train’s frequency, Rodriguez said Chepe is currently operating with daily departures.

The railway was originally conceived as a faster route to move goods to Asia-bound ships docked at Mexico’s Pacific coast, with construction lasting from the 1880s to the 1960s, Rodriguez explained. Spanning 600 miles across northern Mexico from Chihuahua in the northeast (where most passengers board Chepe, Rodriguez said, many of them connecting from Houston, Dallas and Mexico City) to Los Mochis on the Pacific coast (where connections are offered to Los Cabos and Mazatlan), the rail journey takes approximately 16 hours between those two points with plenty of opportunities for adventure and cultural immersion.

“It’s not just a train ride through the canyon,” he said. “There’s a lot to see and do along the way.”

While seniors’ groups have traditionally made up the majority of Chepe’s clientele, Rodriguez told PAX that a growing number of younger travellers are being drawn to the rail line due to the adventure travel opportunities available in the region. Most notable is the Divisaderos Posada region located near the midpoint of the line, where travellers can visit Adventure Park Copper Canyon Divisadero and ride one of the world’s longest ziplines at three miles in length, or scale the canyon walls across a via ferrata climbing feature.

He added that with such a diverse array of travellers riding the rails these days, Mexico Adventures can craft group packages catering to various interests and demographics.

“It goes from senior citizens to extreme adventure and all points in between,” he said. “We’ve got folks remembering their journeys from over the years to travellers looking to go mountain biking in the canyon.”

As Chepe traverses Copper Canyon, Rodriguez said that travellers can interact with both the indigenous Tarahumara people as well as Mexicos’s largest Mennonite colony located outside of Chihuahua.

Offering a “first-class experience up to AmTrak standards,” Rodriguez explained that travellers on Chepe also have the option of bringing along their motorhomes which can be transported aboard flat rail cars. He also advised agents that the aisles of the train’s passenger cars are not wheelchair-accessible.

Rodriguez told PAX that currently, Canadian travellers make up 20 per cent of Mexico Adventure’s clientele and with Canadian arrivals up 3.6 per cent in 2015 with increased connections between the two countries, those numbers are poised to climb even higher.

More information is available at www.coppercanyon.com.mx.