Real de Catorce
Pueblo MáGico / Wirikuta · Catorce, San Luis Potosí
Real de Catorce is a silver town at about 2,750 m in the Sierra de Catorce, which had around fifteen thousand people at its peak and now has a few hundred permanent residents. The only vehicle road in passes through the Ogarrio tunnel, a 2.3 km single-lane mine tunnel worked in one direction at a time, and you emerge into a half-ruined town of cobbles, roofless walls and a working church at the centre. The church of the Immaculate Conception draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims a year to its image of St Francis, peaking around 4 October. The desert below is Wirikuta, the sacred land of the Wixarika people, who walk more than 500 km to reach it. That makes this a pilgrimage site and a living cultural landscape first and a tourist town second. Come for the arrival, the ruins and the silence, bring warm clothes and cash, and do not come for peyote. Nights are cold in every season and the cobbles are steep.
Plaza Hidalgo, Real de Catorce, Catorce, San Luis Potosí, 78550, Mexico
An open town - free, no gate. ⚠ THE ONLY VEHICLE ACCESS IS THE OGARRIO TUNNEL, 2.3 KM AND SINGLE-LANE, RUN ONE DIRECTION AT A TIME BY RADIO with a small toll - expect to wait at the mouth in both directions, especially at weekends. ⚠ THE TEMPLO DE LA PURÍSIMA IS FREE and its ex-voto room is open through the day; it is a working pilgrimage church. ⚠ THE SAN FRANCISCO PILGRIMAGE PEAKS AROUND 4 OCTOBER and the town is overwhelmed - there is no accommodation without months of notice. ⚠ THE DESERT BELOW IS WIRIKUTA, SACRED LAND OF THE WIXÁRIKA: peyote is sacred, depleted, illegal for non-indigenous use, and the Wixárika have publicly asked visitors to stop coming for it. ⚠ IF YOU MEET PILGRIMS, GIVE THEM SPACE AND DO NOT PHOTOGRAPH THEM; ask locally before going up Cerro Quemado. ⚠ ALTITUDE 2,750 METRES WITH FREEZING NIGHTS AND ALMOST NO HEATING. ⚠ BRING CASH - ATMs are unreliable. ⚠ HOURS AND PRICES NOT VERIFIED FOR THIS FILE.