Real de Catorce: A Magical 'Ghost Town' Part Three

While some people see a ghost town, steeped in history, spirituality and freely growing peyote, others see a movie set. The empty streets of Real de Catorce have been used as the backdrop for so many documentaries and films, that many outside Mexico subconsciously picture the town as Mexico.


'The Mexican', starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, is one of the more famous movies shot in Real de Catorce. Here are two scenes from it, both showing the town.





Brad Pitt was later interviewed after the shoot and he said that Real de Catorce was 'a trip'. There are places in the town, where photographs of the filming are displayed. Local people were able to get very close to the stars, so some of the photos are very candid.

The movie also had a huge effect on the town in terms of amenities. Just one 'phone line and the electricity switching off at 8pm might have been considered fine for the residents, but a Hollywood film crew wasn't about to put up with that. By the time they left, the town had much more wiring and communications infrastructure.



Some of the local residents don't stop at allowing their town to be used as the backdrop to movies. They feature in them too. The chef of Ruinas del Real Hotel was in 'Pirates of the Caribbean'.


Ruinas del Real Hotel is just one of the handful of hotels and B&Bs set up to cater to the boom in tourism here. It is also the place favored by the incoming film crews. Guests here can stay in 'The Julia Roberts Suite', where the bathroom was especially built to the actress's specifications. (I guess that she wasn't prepared to 'slum' it, though the bathrooms throughout the hotel are quite satisfactory!)

Another big name movie shot in Real de Catorce was 'Bandidas', starring Penélope Cruz and Salma Hayek.



It's not just modern film crews that have descended upon the town. Back in 1948, John Huston arrived, with an ensemble cast, which included Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, and Tim Holt, in order to shoot 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre'. (You'll know it by the classic line, "We don't need no stinking badges!", which has been parodied in so many places since, despite being a misquotation.)


This was the first American movie to be shot on location entirely outside the USA. Some scenes were filmed in Durango and Tampico. It was also amongst the first 100 films to be selected for perservation, in the United States National Film Registry, as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'.

Real de Catorce: A Magical 'Ghost Town' Part Two

Real de Catorce sits 2,750 meters (9,022ft) above sea level, high up in the Sierra Catorce mountains. This is one of the highest plateaus in Mexico. In 1779, there was no access road, no buildings, no sanitation and no water, but there was silver. With silver came the mines; and with the mines came the people. Almost overnight, it seemed, a large town sprang up from this barren, desert landscape. It was hedonistic and practically lawless. Life savings could be lost, and fortunes made, on a single cockfight. Yet still the people poured in.

It wasn't only the Mexican people here. As news of Real's silver wealth spread, people came from all over the globe to try their luck in this anarchistic town. Many were Spanish, but there was a British mining company too; and it was a Guatemalan, Silvestre Lopez Portillo, who first set about forging a proper town from the chaos. He brought the amenities, law, local government and planning that served a population, which had now boomed to 15,000 people.


In its heyday, Real had 190 mines, extracting some of the highest price silver in the world. It had its own mint, a bullring and shops selling luxury items from Europe. It had a theater, which the celebrities of the day would visit. In 1895, the town even welcomed the president, Porfirio Díaz, when he came to the inaugaration of new machinery in one of the mines.

Yet the greatest achievement had to be the tunnel which allowed access into Real itself. 2,300 meters (7,546ft) long, this subterranean road is still used to reach the town. Walking or driving through it can be an utterly surreal experience. Thousands of people have passed along it, filled with their hopes and dreams, or the desolution of their losses.


In 1900, the international price of silver plummeted. It wasn't worth keeping the mines open, so one by one they shut. The trickle of people leaving became a flood, until only a few were left. Buildings lay empty. The mine-shafts were boarded up. The great and grand mansions sank into ruin. Thus the town is now and, for many tourists, is its charm. They wander through streets that, just a century ago, were teeming with crowds; and peer into windows, where people lived and worked and raised their families.

Only a thousand people still live permanently in Real de Catorce. A couple of the mines remain open, but the digs are small scale. Many of the residents find work in serving the tourists: those who come for the indian shamans, the peyote, the history or the ghost town spectacle. A couple of the mines have been opened as tourist attractions too. But there is also another class of regular visitors - the Catholic pilgrims.


Templo de la Purisima Concepcion (Church of the Immaculate Conception) was lavishly built in the 1790s, but was added to throughout the 19th century. Master builders and silversmiths were brought in from Mexico City, to create some of the beautiful details throughout the interior. It's a truly glorious church to visit. However, the pilgrims aren't here for the spectacle. They are here for the miracles.

The church is home to an image of St Francis de Assisi. The statuette has the affectionate nick-names of 'Panchito' or 'El Charrito'. Reports of miracles occurring, after leaving votive offers in front of St Francis, started early in the town's history. As Real died, this belief never did. Today, the area around the image is shrewn with candles and metal plaques, engraved with details of successful blessings.


On his feast day, October 4th, the town is busy again, as the streets fill with thousands of Catholics come to pay homage to this image. The festivities begin around September 20th and last into late October, though the 4th has the largest events.

Many people, who trace their ancestry to those who used to live in the town during the silver days, return with their families. They come to ask for favors, or give thanks for miracles enacted in their own lives. There are so many pilgrims that they couldn't possibly fit into the church, thus St Francis is taken out and paraded through the streets.

It is a time for piety, but this being Mexico, food, drink, song and dance also make up a large part of the tradition. Yet all of this is done in simplicity. It's a time for self-reflection and the emotions, not lavish hedonism. Just part of the inherent spirituality of the place, as was discussed in yesterday's blog.


By the end of October, the Catholic pilgrims all go away and Real de Catorce takes on its ghost town aspect again.

Real de Catorce: A Magical 'Ghost Town' Part One

In its heyday, Real de Catorce, in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, was a bustling mining town with a population of 15,000. These days, it's a parched village, surrounded by ruins. It's often labelled a 'ghost town', despite the remaining 1,000 residents; and despite the steady stream of Catholic pilgrims and Pagan mystics. The industry may be mostly over, but the spirituality goes on; and, of course, this is the land of peyote.


Since ancient times, the Huichol Indians have returned annually to the Catorce Valley. They come from miles around, often walking for weeks, from their lands in far-flung states. Even today, they will come from Nayarit, Durango, Jalisco and Zacatecas, in order to pay their respects in this holy place.

Here is Cerro del Quemado, perched up in the mountaineous Sierra Catorce, a sacred center for these people. It is the birthplace of the God, Tatewari, also known as Grandfather Fire. Three concentric rings of stone, within which offerings have been left since time immemorial. To the side of the ceremonial shrine, there is a relatively recent addition. It's a limestone shack, within with a candle burns. The sacred flame. Traditionalists, amongst the Huichol Indians, will come here three times a year. Once to ask; once to say; and once to give thanks.


The Huichol Indians will then venture down into the Catorce Valley (or Wirikuta in the Huichol tongue) to gather their holy plant. It will be used in rituals back home. It is a catcus called peyote, those properties cause hallucinogenic visions. For the hippies and drug tourists, steeped in chemically produced LSD, this is the real thing. Thus they too come in their droves, to soak up the spiritual ambiance and to harvest their own wild peyote.

It's a situation which is threatening the survival of the catcus itself. So much of it has been removed that Wirikuta peyote is in danger of disappearing from the landscape.

The government recently launched a campaign to protect it. It's now illegal for anyone but the Huichol Indians to pick it. The whole valley has been made part of an ecologically protected zone. The wardens are all Huichol Indians, who patrol the valley. They not only stop people picking peyote, but also educate them on why this should be necessary.


This isn't the first time that the native people have endeavoured to protect this holy place. The Spanish-Mexican name for the valley and the mountain is Catorce, aka Fourteen. The town that was built, when silver was discovered in the Sierra Catorce, is Real de Catorce, or The Royal Fourteen. This refers to fourteen Spanish soldiers ambushed by Chichimec warriors.

The Chichimeca were semi-nomadic people, who lived in this area, at the time of the Spanish conquest. Conquistador Hernán Cortés considered them not nearly as civilized as the Atzec people. In 1526, Cortés wrote to Spain, saying that the Chichimeca would be good as slaves and that they could be put to work in the fledging silver mines.

The tribe fought a long and bloody war against enslavement, from 1550-1590, with the Catorce name around here being a legacy of one of those meetings. The Spanish didn't get a foothold in these mountains until 1721. Even then, the Chichimeca were never conquered.

'Foreverland' Being Filmed in Mexico

Filming on the Canadian blockbuster, 'Foreverland', has shifted from the coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, to the balmy tropics of Baja California, in Mexico. Its star-studded cast and crew are currently being spotted on the beaches of Los Cabos.


Juliette Lewis jet-skiing in Los Cabos
'Foreverland' follows the fortunes of Will Rankin (Max Thieriot), a young man, with cystic fibrosis, on a road trip to Mexico. He has with him the ashes of his dead friend (Laurence Laboeuf) and is accompanied by his friend's sister, Hannah (Juliette Lewis). Their destination is a healing shrine, Del Sol, where Laboeuf's character wished to have his ashes scattered. Will hopes that a miracle there will save him from his own painful fate.

Thomas Dekker also stars, in this Maxwell McGuire directed epic movie. McGuire co-wrote the script with Shawn Riopelle. It is billed as a love story, as well as a road movie. Along the way is quirky comedy, tragedy and plenty of scope for dreams and regrets.

Much of the principal photography has been taking place, throughout February and March, in La Paz, the capital city of Baja California Sur. La Paz is already relatively famous in the literary world. It was the setting for Newbury Honor Book award-winning 'The Black Pearl' by Scott O'Dell, as well as featuring heavily in John Steinbeck's classic novel, 'The Pearl'. As might be deduced, the pearl trade, in the area, is one of its major sources of economy. La Paz is also one of Mexico's favourite eco-tourist destinations.


La Paz, Baja California Sur
Britain's Daily Mail newspaper has a photo-spread of Foreverland lead actress, Juliette Lewis, with a mystery man, in Los Cabos this week: 'Juliette Lewis gets wet and wild on the back of her toyboy's jet ski on day two of their beach romance'. The area, which includes Cabo San Lucas, has been seeing a lot of international celebrities just recently. Sean Penn, Scarlett Johansson, Gethin Jones and Katherine Jenkins were all there last month ('Romantic Cabo San Lucas Attracts the Stars').

Catemaco: City of Witches

When the volcano became dormant, after blowing itself apart, it left a crater. In the crater formed a lake. Fish-eating baboons populated the jungle around the lake. A city grew upon the shore; its people drawn by the plentiful fishing.



Cattle ranches and farmland ate into the jungle, but not too much. The lush foliage still spreads, wide and dense, upon the remaining volcanic peaks. Mel Gibson chose it as a filming location for some of the scenes in 'Apocalypto'; Sean Connery used it as a backdrop for 'Medicine Man'. The Mexican government protect it, as part of the Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve. UNESCO declared it a world heritage site. Out on the lake, there are islands where the macaque monkeys roam free; survivors of research labs. This is Catemaco and the city belongs to the witches.



There are always brujos in Catemaco. The High Council of Witches and Wizards resides there. Pilgrims, primarily from Mexico but increasingly from around the world, come here for healing, workshops or magical protection. The city has charms, in every sense of the word. Then, during the first Thursday and Friday in March, the city fills with magical practitioners of every hue. This is the Congreso Internacional de Brujos (International Gathering of Witches) and, during this festival, the sleepy city truly comes alive.

The fiesta erupts in parades, music and dancing. Healers, psychics, therapists and Pagan vendors line the shore. Everywhere the fine food, for which Catemaco is nationally famous, is on offer in abundance. The streets are filled with priests and priestesses in their finery. Olmec head-dresses rise, in full plumage, above the throng. This is a celebration, as much as a get-together.

The Annual Gathering of Witches is a light-hearted affair. You don't have to be a witch to be there. In fact, ordinary tourists are the ones filling the hotels and guesthouses, drawn by the party atmosphere and the wonderful sights on offer. A tarot reading here, an amulet there and participation in a cleansing ceremony are usually as far as the average visitor tends to go. For the real Pagans though, this is an opportunity to meet up with like-minded people, sharing knowledge and joining together for rituals. On the whole, it's both fun and empowering.



Catemaco has always been steeped in the mystical. It was once the stronghold of the Olmec people. Local legend has it that Catemaco was once the sacred center for the Olmec, hence its Pagan credentials start there. The festivals and practises now are simply a continuation of ways that have been here for 3,000 years. Colossal Stone Heads have been found in nearby San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán.

The area is also home to several tribes of Hungaros/Rromaní (gypsies). These people will be in Catemaco for the gathering, plying their traditional wares and services.


For more information about the witches of Catemaco, plus photographs, film and stories, please visit Catemaco Brujos.