Real de Catorce, a Town Hidden From the Rest of the World

Even before I found out that I needed to make a trip to Mexico this summer, Real de Catorce was on my mind.  When you have been to a place as beautiful as this tiny corner of the world, it doesn't leave your mind.

Funny enough, when I think about it, the beautiful places I have had the privilege of traveling to that have stuck with me the most were all natural destinations; out on the Puget Sound, Isle Royale, deep in the rain forests of Costa Rica and of course, overlooking the valleys that lie below Real de Catorce.

How my family ended up making our way to this lost town is actually kind of funny-- at least I thought so.  The Christmas wedding of my cousin brought a lot of the family together, and funny enough my parents argued about attending all the way to the driveway.  It had been a while since the fam made a trip down to Mexico and my cousin was marrying the son of an old family friend, so it was the chance to see and catch up with a lot of folks.

My dad insisted we could not make the trip, my mom was determined to find a way.  Everyone but dad was packed up in the car, and as we pulled out my dad finally believed that my mom was serious so he told her to wait five minutes and ran inside to throw a few things in the car.  Just a word of warning, this is definitely not the way to travel to Mexico and I don't see anyone getting away with it now-- because of all the new laws and tighter border controls-- but we did it.

Anyway, after the wedding we talked about stopping at a couple cities and doing some sightseeing till we got home.  In reality, we had to haul it back to Chicago because we own a family business and we left without leaving anything settled, making phone calls to take care of things on the way down-- I also had an early class start for the Spring Semester and had to be back in the lab on the second of January.

While talking to my cousin at the day after the wedding party, I asked where they planned on Honeymooning, and you are not going to believe it, but the new couple begged-- yes, begged-- us to go with them.  My cousin said that they were going to travel to a long lost city, high in the mountains where the rest of the world was forgotten.  My cousin, her new husband and my uncle would not stop talking about this beautiful town where time stopped that we just had to see.

After a lot of coaxing the family piled into the van and we followed my cousins out of town and onto the highway.  Hours later we turned off the highway onto a stone paved road that wound several miles up the mountainside.  Now, I have been in tour buses, rickety vans and other vehicles driving up the sides of mountains before, but this was insane-- I was scared out of my mind, even though the view was unbelievable.

Over an hour later the road ended at the side of the mountain, only it really didn't because straight ahead there was a hole into the side of the mountain.  Not even a big hole, but big enough for the van to pass under without scraping the roof.  There were a few men that were controlling the flow of traffic into and out of the tunnel and when the signal came the line of cars we were in entered the hand chiseled, mile long tunnel that was once used to carry the silver out of the mountains.  People wanting to get to Real de Catorce had to go over the mountain.

The other side of the tunnel really did reveal a village that was basically cut off from the rest of the world.  There is a single phone line in the town, everybody knows everybody, most every building looks the same as it did when the town was established and what would be considered archeological sites anywhere else are everywhere-- untouched, part of the landscape.

One of my first and favorite memories of the time I spent in Real left me knowing that I would always love this place.  Deciding to find a place before night came on my parents parked outside of one of the two or three "hotels" in the town and went in to negotiate for rooms.  My sibs and I quickly got out of the car and looked around, I was totally drawn into the scene across the street.

A family had left the gate to their patio open, houses in the region are built to open around a patio or courtyard, and the entire family was sitting out in the patio.  In the middle of the courtyard there was a well and an older lady was drawing water from the well, when she looked up to catch me staring.  I was totally embarrased, but I was romanticizing the whole scene in my head.  Before I could turn and walk away, the grandmother, motioned for me to come in and when I smiled and apologized she admonished me and called me in.  I obeyed.

I don't remember what we talked about anymore, but this family behaved like they had been waiting for me and were thrilled to see me.  I was baffled, but they were the most genuine and open people I had ever talked to.

There is a lot to see in the village itself, and in the past few years the village has been inundated with a flood of people coming to buy Peyote, after word of the hallucinogen spread.  The cactus is sacred to the Huichol Indians, who travel the distance to collect and then make offerings to their Gods, in the mountains surrounding Real de Catorce.  They have been traveling to the are way before it was a town, as this is believed to be the birthplace of their gods.  Now that the extra traffic has reached such high levels, authorities have begun cracking down and there is now the need to protect the cactus from dissappearing altogether.

What really drew me in though was the natural beauty of the area.  The town sits at the top of the Sierra de Catorce Mountain Range, and the outskirt of town overlooks a valley that is beyond description.  A Huichol Indian I spoke with said it was where the world was born, and I began to believe him after watching the sun rise and the stars fill the valley that first day--and everyday after that.

The only thing I hated was having to leave.  I could not shake the feelings I had and the scenes that played out in front of me.  It was the only time everything and everyone around me was silent at the same time, the view drew everyone's attention and admiration.

I can't wait to get back there this month.  Both my cousin and I are desperate to reach Real de Catorce.  I am prepared for the changes that everyone has warned me about, it is no longer the quiet city that it once was, but I know that despite the crowds and the added noise that view will still be there.

There is a relatively new youtube video that someone made that covers lots of things on Real de Catorce.  I have several pictures, but they are all packed up so I am going to add the video for those that want to learn more about this beautiful place.