It's an old mining town, that at one point had a population of about 40,000, which is now down closer to around 2000. It was a booming place at one point, then went all ghost-town. In the past number of years, it's been becoming more of a tourist destination and it's definitely showing.
The Huichol indians know it as the place where the sun was born, which is pretty cool. They do a sort of pilgrimage there every year, walking for 30 days through the desert to get there. Then, they eat peyote as a sacrament and bond with the spirits. There's a specific mountain in the area that they go to, but we didn't make it there.
We rented a car with our Dutch couple friends and drove there - about 4.5 hours or so. It was wild driving through the Mexican countryside (which it all is outside the city). There's just scrub brush for as far as you can see, literally. Random cacti popping up all over the place, and small tornados of dust shooting up in the air and disappearing as fast as they are pointed out. It got exciting for a minute, when, rather than risk waiting at least an hour at a railroad crossing for a slow-moving mile-long train that was fast approaching, we made a split-second decision to gun the engine and just barely made it across the tracks, much to the consternation of the whistle-blowing engineer. That was some adrenaline rush, I have to say.
We stopped for lunch at a roadside loncheria which was quite interesting. Smack dab in the middle of nowhere, it was also a one-stop shopping center. They had one of pretty anything you could want, from extra car parts (tail-lights, fan belts, tires) to kids toys, toiletries, jeans, cowboy boots, and pretty much anything you could want. They even had cassette tapes, which I haven't seen for sale anywhere in years.
The last 25 miles or so are on a cobblestone sort of road on which you can't drive any faster than about 20 mph. It makes for slow going through a pretty hot, dry desert. The road goes up into the mountains, along a windy road until you reach the tunnel. The tunnel is 2.5 km and one-way only, so you wait in the line of cars until the guy gives you the go-ahead. In the meantime, you fend off the kids crowding around the car trying to sell you all kinds of fruits, foods and other stuff.
The tunnel is cool - there are small, boarded-up offshoot tunnels along the sides, a couple small chapel rooms you can see, and it all seems to be help up by wooden beams looking like they should have been replaced long ago.
Finally, you burst out into bright daylight and are directed to park in the lot, as the town really can't handle automobile traffic. This is a place that was designed for donkey travel, and not much more. We were told that since we had a hotel reservation, we could drive up and drop off our stuff. After a harrowing drive up streets, around corners, and down alleyways that our rental go-cart could just barely handle, we pulled up in front of the Hotel Real de Alamos. Luckily, there was a parking spot across the street that we fit in, and just left it there.
The hotel was perfect - a bed, a plastic table and chair, a toilet. No toilet paper, but I had anticipated that and brought my own. After putting our stuff down, we headed out to walk around and see what was up. A quick cerveza in the local cantina - noting the sign that Brad Pitt was there while filming the movie The Mexican - was great for parched throats.
Have I mentioned the drink that I've fallen for? It's called a chelada - and I really like it. It involves a small splash of lime or lemon juice at the bottom of a class filled with ice and with salt on the rim. Your choice of beer (Indio, Victoria, Bohemia, Sol, Corona) poured and mixed in. Refreshing and delicious!
We headed over to the museum that's housed in the former mint, from when the town was booming. There was some cool art, and it was a worthy stop. After that, it was just walking around the little streets and alleys.
I have to say that the "artisianal" souvenirs and other crafts, goods, etc were somewhat disappointing. It really seems like every single shop I've been in, whether in Zacatecas or elsewhere has the same stuff. I do hope to get somewhere I can check out some unique things.
If that's not possible, I'd like to have a look at the catalogue that its like every souvenir shop in the world orders from. It must be about a million pages long and indexed by country. I'd order a little Mountie from the Canada section, a poncho and sombrero from the Mexico section, a miniature Tower Bridge from England's offerings, and maybe a plastic eagle from the US pages. It was clear to me that the touristy line was long-ago crossed in Real de Catorce when I saw that every little store was selling the Rasta-coloured hats with fake dreadlocks. And that people were walking around wearing them.
More about Real de Catorce later, including the most amazing views ever, a disappointing bullfighting ring, horseriding to the top of a mountain, and going deep (or not so deep) inside a mine...
spare me the adrenaline rush that's what you did to me when i read the description
ReplyDelete