Planet Kapow 12 : Aguascalientes to Real de Catorce

AND SO: the southward journey continues, out of Zacatecas state and into tiny Aguascalientes. The city here was another of Mexico's famed silver cities, along with Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, Guanajuato, Queretaro and Taxco - all of which we would visit in due course. While it failed to live up to the stunning beauty of Zacatecas, it was nevertheless a disgustingly pleasant place to while away a couple of days - especially after we were seized upon by the staff of a bar near the cathedral, who for no particular reason decided to spend their Monday night showering us with free beer and tequila and trying to set us up with middle-aged factory workers from the outskirts of the city (these being, we supposed, the only women to have entered the establishment in quite some time). In a surreal ending, they rounded up some local lesbians who happened to be walking past (with shouts of "Hey, lesbians!") to have their photos taken with us. Yes, the fun never stops here in Mexico...

From there to San Luis Potosi, full of beautiful colonial streets, where we stuffed our faces with the local delicacy - tortillas fried in hot chili oil and stuffed with meat. It seemed like everything was shaping up for an excellent stay - and then we ran into Omar, a friendly-seeming guy who invited us round for a couple of drinks. For a while everything went well - he was a filmmaker, showed us some of his films, told us about a few cool bars - but started becoming, in turns, uncomfortably aggressive and then creepily desperate for our company, all of which was soundtracked by his constant catchphrase, a growled "Stop fucking around!". After a few hours we tried to make our goodbyes, but he insisted on walking us back to our hotel, where he proceeded to pound his fists on the front glass door for several minutes and then got into a near-punchup with the hotel manager. It ruined San Luis Potosi for us, but fortunately Omar was the exception that proves the rule - one of very very few unlikeable Mexicans we've come across. Still, it was enough to put us on a bus bound for Real de Catorce.

Real de Catorce was a thriving silver town of 40,000 during the 1800's, but was almost entirely abandoned during the first few decades of the 20th century - nobody really knows why, though it was a bad time both for silver prices and for rural Mexico, which was going through the ten-year revolution. Now it's a stark stone ruin draped across a valley - though quite a few people have moved back in and set up shop, trading on the 'ghost town' reputation. We went for a long meandering walk through the valley, past the abandoned mine, creepy in the twilight, but we knew there was only one way to do this properly: on horseback.

Clip-clopping along slowly, cautiously - horses being unfamiliar to both Adam and I, each of us filled with visions of the horse tripping and rolling on every descent. Out of the cobblestone streets of town, through great stands of cacti, past the stone ruins of an abandoned village. Finally across barren plains, empty and desolate, to a mountain atop which the indigenous Huichol people perform their sacred peyote ceremonies after their three-month march from Jalisco province.

Three thousand metres high, with sweeping views of the surrounding country, all gloriously free of the least trace of civilization - and who should we find there but an American IT guy from town, who had jogged all the way from his internet cafe "just to get the blood pumping" - "Normally I do two laps a day," he sighed with a voice full of regret, "but my foot's a bit sore, so I'm going to take it a little easy today". He turned and jogged away, only getting about twenty metres down the road before I killed him with a large rock to the head and buried him in a shallow grave. Asshole.

But riding back into town, with mariachi music from some tinny speakers on someone's roof booming across the valley, and children playing dancing games in the dirt, giggling and screaming, and the whole place just spread out before us against the valley wall, with the cathedral cresting it all - despite the pain of a crushed spine and mangled ballsack that was to follow, in that moment everything was glorious.

Music on this episode includes the Julieta Venegas remix of Ceci Bastida's "Como Soy" (from Fonogramaticos Volume 6), "Mexico Lindo y Querido" by Valente Pastor, Alberto Angel and Humbierto Craviato - another selection from the excellent mariachi compilation Viva Mexico y Sus Canciones - and another selection from the Shadows, "Guitar Tango".

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• real de catorce
• san luis potosi
• horses
• huichole
• peyote
• broke back mountain
• horseriding
• aguascalientes
• mexico
• travel
• backpacking

[Drumsaviour900]

so have you or any one ever been to the three doors?you can only go through one.....or