On arrival in Creel we booked into the Posada de Cobre, room is very basic but the beds are bliss. Also the hotel provided an excellent shuttle service and collected us from the train station, as well as delivering us to Downtown and collecting us after dinner.

We finally figured out what to do with the tortillas at breakfast. (Break off pieces, hold the piece against the plate and scrape some food onto it, eat with fingers.)

Soon after breakfast we were collected by a driver to go on a big tour around the Creel region. The absolute standout was the Valley of the Monks. As usual the pictures don’t do justice to the size and uniqueness of the formations, nor the very large area the formations cover. It’s like a gigantic version of the Pinnacles north of Perth, and a lot more varied.

We also saw a couple of places where native families live in caves. It was somewhat uncomfortable intruding in such personal space and at the same time of course amazing. It seems they have a kind of subsistence life, earning money from craft sales and also tourist donations (tourists seem generous in that), as well as some farming in the rich soil of the valleys, perhaps mostly maize.

Creel is an important tourist town, being central to many tours and basically at the head of the Copper Canyon. A visit here is highly recommended, and if you can do nothing else, at least go see Valle de Los Monces (Valley of the Monks). The best place in town is probably Best Western, which has a really great bar and restaurant, including Mexican guitarists/singers, and Sky Sports.

We bonded over alcohol with some nice Canadians and Scottish people who’d been friends for many years and were travelling together. We seem to have met a lot of Canadians who live in Mexico for the winter.

I had doubts about coming to Creel because we’d already had the best possible experience of Copper Canyon, staying at the amazing Mirador Hotel, and also the train trips right through the guts of it, but really now I think you’d have to be mad to come to Mexico and not see the Valley of the Monks.

Tomorrow we head off by bus back to Chihuahua for one night, this time in a nicer hotel, Plaza (not Plaza del Angel), before flying to New Orleans via Dallas.