It is 534 km (332 miles) from San Carlos to Tucson and usually takes about 6 hours of driving. It can be much longer than that if you run into issues crossing the border, which, as it turns out, we did. More on that later.

Lunch was in the town of Hermosillo. Uncommon Journeys did a good job of breaking up these long days with adequate stops to use the bathroom, stretch our legs and eat!

In Santa Ana we made a switch of both driver and vehicle for the last leg back to the US. We said our goodbyes to our driver, Abraham, and I had to laugh because we were transferred from our 17 passenger van to another 50 passenger bus for the rest of the trip. Everyone had multiple rows of seats to choose from.

Normally the border crossing goes very quickly (less the one hour). Today Murphy, of Murphy’s Law fame showed up! It took us THREE hours to clear the border. And at the border we had to get off the bus with our luggage, which had to go through an X-ray machine before we were allowed to reboard the bus and continuing our journey. It became obvious that we would not reach our Tucson hotel until after 9PM so the planned farewell dinner at a local restaurant was now out of the question. Christopher asked if we would be willing to simply stop at a fast food stop along the way to eat because we were not sure what might be open by the time we got to our hotel. We readily agreed and soon pulled into a Wendy’s where we were told to order whatever we wanted!  Surprisingly everyone was happy and after all our rich food/big meals these past 10 days those fries, burgers and a Frosty tasted really good.

Indeed it was close to 10 PM before we arrived at our hotel for the night. We hastily bid farewell to Christopher and our fellow travelers as the tour which covered over 1200 miles of driving, was now officially over!

Epilogue

– Photographs cannot do justice to show the beauty and scope of Copper Canyon. It must be seen in person to appreciate what Mother Nature had created there.

– Friends questioned whether it was safe to travel to Mexico. We never felt any concern for our safety. We occasionally saw roaming trucks of police in some of the larger cities but that was it. We were probably safer there than in some of our own US cities.

– There were no health concerns with food. Of course, that is a good reason to travel with a reputable tour company as they guided us to “safe” food establishments.

– I was surprised that we were not bothered by any bugs (mosquitoes, flies, etc.) during the trip. I had expected them to be a nuisance.

-Because of the location of the canyon there was a lot of driving/dead time in simply reaching that area of Mexico. On the positive side, however, you got to experience other areas and sights along the way. It is, indeed, a very big world we occupy.

Parting Comment: “Life is short and the world is wide.” – Unknown