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Mexico 1989: Mexicali to Mexico City by train with a visit to El Parque Nacional en Uruapan

Why I do things I’ll never know. Back in 1989 I took my wife of one year on a journey from Mexicali, Mexico to the province of Michoacan in deep Mexico. We went by train, a train that no longer exists. It was an adventure that ended abruptly and mercifully in Guadalajara.

At the time we lived in Spring Valley, a suburb of San Diego, California. We frequented a Mexican restaurant named Carnitas Uruapan. They made the best carnitas (pork) burritos. We became friends with the owners. They played card continuously at one of the tables. They spoke to us about the real Uruapan, a town famous for their carnitas. Like Taxco for silver or Cuernavaca for copper, Uruapan was famous for carnitas? You’ve got to be kidding? Soon the couple lost their lease and had to move to another location.

I was still in the navy and had huge amounts of vacation time coming to me. But where to go? What to do? We’ll go to Uruapan. Planned the trip and never looked back. Fearless? No, just silly and adventurous. This trip was not given a second thought. Planned and executed like taking a carriage ride in Central Park, only we were traveling into a foreign country knowing little Spanish and traveling by train. Not knowing the language fluently will cause major problems down the road. For 12 days we ventured staying overnight in Mexicali and having dinner at a restaurant in a small mall. We hoofed it several blocks in the dark to get their and return. The next day I was sick.

We boarded the Ferrocarriles Nationales Mexico Primera Especial (1st class) in the morning. Miraculously we got the scheduling right and had tickets bound for Mexico City. Preparations were made at trainside in Mexicali. The train itself is equal to that of Amtrak in my opinion. I was impressed. We did manage to breakdown several times on this first leg, sometimes for hours with no air conditioning because the power would go out. We had heard that much of the telephone lines in Mexico were down and communication across the vast country was spotty. We saw plenty of downed power lines in the middle of nowhere in the desert of Northern Mexico. Photos were taken by film on my Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic 35 MM camera.