Real de Catorce

Real De Catorce is a beautiful, energy filled, tiny town in the middle of the Sierra Catorce Mountains. Originally, a silver mining town we ended up there because our friends from the Emerald Coast told us about it. This town is very special. To even enter the town you have to drive on a cobblestone road through the mountain for 24KM. That’s about 15 miles, it sounded like the van was going to fall apart. Then, right when you think you are there, there is a two-mile long tunnel that goes through a mountain that brings you to the entrance of the town. It’s really pretty amazing. The town is also where the movie “The Mexican” was filmed. It is still somewhat of a ghost town. Also, the Huichol Indians make a pilgrimage here every year from Jalisco. It’s a 400KM journey and they walk the entire time, barely stopping to sleep and eat. Here they walk to the sacred mountain (about 1 hr walking), where they pray to the sun god and pick peyote buttons for their ancient ceremonies. In order to pick the buttons they have to take a little bit at the time of harvest and thank the earth for providing this for them. They harvest thousands of peyote buttons every year and dry them for their sacred ceremonies later in the year. Anyone can walk to the sacred mountain and have a peyote experience. Jesse and I did a long hike in the morning to the mountain right next to the sacred mountain. We had a couple of firsts that day but unfortunately none of them included the buttons. Next time we will be venturing to the sacred mountain. Who’s coming with us?