The next morning brought blue skies and the kind of light that makes it hard to hurry. After coffee and a light breakfast we set out toward Chochis, about two hours away, planning to find a hotel there and spend the evening near the towering sandstone formations that dominate the valley.
Not long before reaching Chochis we noticed a small roadside sign pointing toward a place called El Portón.
Curiosity won.
We turned off the highway and began climbing a narrow dirt road that quickly deteriorated into something not far removed from the road to Piso Firme at its worst—rocky, winding, and slow going, though thankfully without the water pits that had plagued us earlier in the trip.
About half an hour later the road delivered us into a small clearing beneath towering sandstone cliffs.
There we met Enrique.
Barefoot and wearing shorts, he stepped out of an old building and introduced himself as if he had been expecting visitors all along. For the next hour he showed us around what had once been a railway stop but now sat on the edge of becoming a ghost town.
The old station still stood, along with a church, a schoolhouse, and a few scattered buildings slowly surrendering to time. A single rail line cut through the property. In a nearby pasture a horse grazed alongside a handful of sheep and goats.
All of it was surrounded by dramatic cliffs rising almost vertically above the village, their sheer faces giving the place a feeling of quiet protection.
With Enrique’s permission I photographed the buildings and the landscape while he talked about the history of the place. At the end of our visit he disappeared briefly into the old station and returned carrying a handful of fruit, which he shared with us before we left.
We thanked him, promised to return someday, and started back down the same rough road toward the highway.
Soon afterward we reached Chochis, instantly recognizable by its towering sandstone monument that rises above the village like a natural cathedral. After checking into a small hotel we drove out to explore nearby Aguas Calientes and Roboré before returning to Chochis for dinner at a small place along one of the town’s dirt streets.
