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 Travel & Outdoors | June 2005 
The Mysterious Mines of Pozos
 Barbara Kastelein - The Herald Mexico
| | Santa Brígida's landmark is three lonesome smoke stacks and a cluster of buildings that include a white-and-terracotta hospital that still has most of its four walls. |
Forty-five minutes from San Miguel de Allende lies an intriguing town of yellow stone, slowly baking in the high desert of Guanajuato. As befits a former ghost town, you hear all kinds of stories.
There are claims Pozos, or Mineral de Pozos as it's more formally known, is going up in the world and will soon be the new San Miguel de Allende. There are also conspiracy theories that there is deliberately no federal backing for tourism (although blue agave plantations are being promoted) because there are plans behind the scenes with large Canadian companies to mine the gold and silver that still lie only 90 meters below ground.
Some versions say Pozos, at 7,500 feet, had a population of 70,000 during the mining boom (in the late 19th century) others say 300,000. Everyone agrees this plummeted, although some say to 4,000 and others say to only 300 within weeks! And the cause varies from the Revolution, or a combination of this with the accidental perforation of an aquifer after the mines were nationalized in 1927, resulting in disastrous flooding and the tragic deaths of anywhere between 11 to 13,000 men.
The San Miguel de Allende tourism office does not cover this municipality, which comes under San Luis de la Paz not yet terribly well organized on the tourism information front. Meanwhile, the Guanajuato state tourism office (helpful freephone number: 01-800-714-1086) is still getting together information on this mysterious town to put up "soon" on its website (www.guanajuato-travel.com).
The story of the tragedy certainly stokes the imagination, as the fine wind tunnels you can wander along with the safe escort of a guide in the Santa Brígida mine once stoked the furnace. Cracked from the heat and bolstered with huge stone slabs to stop it from crumbling, this makes for a gripping landscape and unsurprisingly has been used as the set for many a movie.
"I once came here with a group, and we got to see a whole battle scene," Philip Sheridan of PMC tours told me adding wryly, as I set my sights on some intriguing copper-colored crystals, "I hate coming here with rock collectors."
Santa Brígida's landmark is three lonesome smoke stacks, and a cluster of buildings that include a white-and-terracotta hospital that still has most of its four walls. Don Raymundo, a wizened local who you may see stumbling between the blooming century plants, might tell you about "la tragedia" if you gain his confidence. Or he might just ignore you and get on with his task as caretaker of the area.
For the eager eye, Pozos' deserted mines the other is called Los Cinco Señores, named after the five Spanish lords who owned the mine have ecotourism and adventure written all over them. For the cautious eye, they also have a fair measure of danger.
Well before reaching the wind tunnels we passed a yawning mine shaft, without a single piece of fencing or warning sign nearby.
"It's a 600 meter drop," Philip told me, throwing a large rock into its cavernous mouth. By the time we heard the echoing thud as it reached the bottom, it felt as though I had swallowed twice and blinked ten times. Some years ago, a group of teenagers came here at night for some beers and thrills, and returned without a companion.
"He went to the restroom and never came back," Philip told me, as I backed away.
Managed, more or less, by a local ejido, Los Cinco Señores is equally impressive, with a long wall and watchtower and a surreal high wall crumbling in the distance that was built to prevent a landslide. Here some flimsy barbed wire, hardly enough to break a fall, is wound around sticks at the edge of some of the shafts.
Cisterns and trough systems to cool the water are still visible here and Philip can organize a visit along one of the drifts with local guide Jesus Velázquez, alias "El Chino." This is only for those who do not suffer from claustrophobia for, after walking down into the earth for 30 meters, you have to crawl (El Chino lends you helmets with lamps attached) for about 100 meters before you can walk again, about a kilometer under ground.
Philip takes me to the entrance of another drift, where I see tunnels leading in different directions in the half-light and imagine how terrifying it would be to get lost. We take one of the right hand turns and come to another sudden drop.
"This place needs railing desperately," he says dropping a second stone. This time we hear a whoosh and roar to the echo - there's water down there.
The thrill offered by these mines is transformational, a mixture of time travel and a sense of awe at the magnificence and danger of nature (and its man-made metamorphoses).
"So great, and going nowhere," says Philip with a cheeky smile that belies his apparent resignation, as we wend our way back, blinking in the dust and sun.
It's been years since I've seen a place pining this much for investment apparently Fonatur had a project here that Philip understood had been "blocked" and yet at the same time the mystery around Pozo's past and overwhelming sense of its potential is part of what makes the visiting experience so powerful. And, fortunately, for those who step off the beaten track to spend a day, weekend, or even a week, here there is some very good hospitality infrastructure, even though there are no banks.
Two excellent small hotels stand next to each other on Pozos' pretty, shaded Zócalo, the welcoming Casa Mexicana Mexican owned and the elegant Casa Montana, a hub of expatriate gossip and information.
On the way to eat at the former's outstanding restaurant Café des Artistes, we stop by José Luis Navarro's shop of pre-Hispanic musical instruments and buy a weeping whistle for 40 pesos. Navarro's drums or huéhuetls are sought after by musicians throughout the country and command prices of between 2,500 and 5,000 pesos, depending on the size and elaborate engravings in the wood.
Pozos also is home to a museum of pre-Hispanic Musical Instruments next to the public library on the plaza where a tianguis supposedly is held, although it was deserted on a Thursday afternoon. Marcelino, a local musician, is usually on hand to show you how the instruments work, from the atecocoli, a kind of trumpet made out of a guaje, or type of gourd. There is also a teponaxtli a sort of two-toned drum, and the hard-to-pronounce, but pleasant-sounding tekpatlkuikatl, which means "stones that sing" and is akin to the xylophone.
Barbara Kastelein writes a weekly column on travel for The Herald. sirio@data.net.mx |
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