Real de Catorce
San Luis Potosí, Mexico · 23°41′26″N 100°53′12″W
A silver town at 2,750 m reached through a single-lane tunnel, half ruined since the 1900s and now home to a few hundred people, Huichol pilgrims and a lot of silence.
Real de Catorce had 40,000 people at its silver peak in the 1890s and fewer than a thousand by 1910, when the price collapsed. The town on the Sierra de Catorce plateau kept its stone streets, a neoclassical church, a bullring and a mint, with roofless mansions between them. Entry is through the Ogarrio tunnel, cut in 1901.
The Wixárika (Huichol) people make an annual pilgrimage to Wirikuta, the desert below, which is sacred to them; the town is their staging point.
Why it stays quiet
It is three hours from San Luis Potosí on a road most travellers never take. Mexican visitors come on long weekends and Day of the Dead; otherwise the lanes are quiet.
Where it is
Before you go
Nights are cold at this altitude. Horses to the Pueblo Fantasma ruins can be hired in the plaza. Respect Huichol ceremonies; do not photograph them.
Updated 2026-09-06 · Suggest a correction
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