Returning to the Tracks: Riding El Chepe With My Grandfather
It’s just like his stories said it would be. The reliable weight of the wheels, furling and unfurling the sound of northern Mexico’s heart-beat beneath the clunk of metal. Tasting it and spitting it back out again.
And again.
And again.
Outside, stippled blurs of green, brown, and yellow pines flitted by — a testament to the scorching temperatures and arid days that had plagued Chihuahua that summer. Even by the standards of a state with a desert named after it, it was undeniably hot.
Acutely aware of the baby hairs sticking desperately to the nape of my neck, I rearranged my limbs, savouring the second of cool reprieve on my thighs as I peeled them from the plastic cushion.
Across from me, on the other side of the booth, my grandpa seemed entirely unbothered by the heat. Dressed in a crisp, blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up, smelling of the same woody, citrusy Ferragamo cologne he starts and ends his days drenched in, there was not a silver hair out of place on his head. Lost in thought for the moment, he nursed a Tecate beer in one hand, the other hand poised and ready as always to pontificate on something or other.
It’s a running joke in my family that, if you take my grandpa’s hands away, he’d lose his ability to speak and express himself. Right hand flat on the nearest available surface, he punctuates each idea using his left hand to lift one finger at a time, letting it drop stiffly back to the surface — the satisfying noise each finger makes when it hits the table is one of the three-to-five bullet points making up his argument. When there’s too many family-members speaking at once and he wants to interject, my grandpa puts both hands in the air, high over the din of voices, creating a T-shape by driving an index finger into his outstretched palm to signify “time out — Buelo needs to say something.” I have countless memories of road-trips as a kid where, too far back in the van to catch more than a few phrases of the conversation between the adults up front, all I could see was the silhouette of my grandpa’s arm shooting out between the seats, his finger wagging emphatically with the rhythm of his postulation.
It was our third day riding on the Ferrocarril Chihuahua-Pacífico, better known as El Chepe, Mexico’s only passenger train. Starting in the city of Chihuahua and ending in Los Mochis, the 16-hour ride covers nearly 700 kilometres across the Sierra Madre mountains, passing through over a dozen towns, two states, 37 bridges, 86 tunnels, and Las Barrancas del Cobre, a cluster of canyons five times larger than the Grand Canyon on the other side of the border. The area is home to two reserved communities: Mennonites — descendants of Canadian Anabaptist emigrants who live in self-contained campos, or unnamed settlements — and the Rarámuri, or Tarahumara people, an indigenous tribe that lives in the secluded highlands of Chihuahua. Translated to mean “those with light feet,” the Rarámuri are legendary for their athletic prowess and remarkable endurance, able to run many kilometres wearing only rawhide-soled huaraches.
To my grandpa, however, the train-ride wasn’t just a fun, cultural sightseeing activity for him and his family. It was a pilgrimage — a return to the places that had marked him as a young man. A chance to show his grandchildren what spaces had molded him, shaped him into the weather-worn, wise man we’d only ever known.
In 1966, Ricardo Ahumada Guzman, a freshly-licensed accountant, started his job as external auditor for El Chepe, a train that had only just inaugurated its service five years prior. After a year, he was invited to become a direct employee of the railway, applying his skills as the internal accountant in charge of the Department of Budget Control. Four years and a new manager later, Ricardo’s tenure on the train came to a bittersweet end.
“Así es la vida,” that’s life, my grandpa told me matter-of-factly, shrugging his shoulders.
In that span of four short years, however, Buelo saw more of the world than he’d ever had the chance to explore before.
He hadn’t been back in 47 years. Now, surrounded by the family he had helped create, on a multi-day journey across those familiar, unchanging landscapes where his own family had raised him and his fledgling career had taken off, my grandpa was filled with “beautiful nostalgia.”
Staring out into the mountains, he recalled his years on the train as years preoccupied with “fighting for the future” — a battle filled with twists and turns to achieve financial security and stability.
After a second of pause, my grandpa raised his beer into the air and tapped the table to assert that this, “este momento” with his children and grandchildren is the only thing really worth much of anything.
And the wheels kept turning.
And turning.
Again.
And again.
And again.
