This is a point on the high plateau where Zacatecas, Jalisco and Durango meet, in the dry country at the edge of the northern Sierra Madre Occidental. The names of the rides, Cuyetsarie, Cacai Mutijé and Xurahue Muyaca, belong to the Wixárika people, whom outsiders call the Huichol, and refer to places in their sacred geography. Wixárika communities live in the rugged canyons of Mezquitic and Huejuquilla and the neighbouring sierra, and they keep a living tradition in which certain springs, hills and rocks are sites of offering, prayer and pilgrimage.
The great Wixárika journey takes pilgrims hundreds of kilometres east to Wirikuta, in the high desert of San Luis Potosí, where the peyote cactus grows, and the route is connected to a web of sacred places across the whole territory. Not all of these are open to visitors, and the best approach is a respectful one: stay on public roads, do not enter ceremonial areas, ask before photographing people, and understand that the places are not monuments but working spaces of belief. Ceremonial calendars follow the rains and the seasons, and some days are closed to outsiders.
The landscape itself is wide and austere, a plateau of pale grass, oak, mesquite and prickly pear at roughly two thousand metres, cut by deep barrancas where the land falls away toward warmer country. Mornings are crisp and clear, with a hard blue sky, and winter nights can be near freezing. The summer rains turn the hills green and make the dirt roads treacherous. The tarmac roads are generally quiet and straight, but they can be patched and have livestock on the surface, and some lonely sections have little traffic and no phone signal.
Fuel is the main thing to plan. Monte Escobedo, with about four thousand people, is the nearest place likely to have a station, and Huejuquilla el Alto, farther north, is the other option; Mezquitic is smaller. Do not count on anything between them. Simple food, such as tortillas, beans, roasted meat and strong coffee, is available in town cafes and taquerias, and a night in the small towns tends to be cheaper and quieter than in the tourist spots. Bring water and a spare layer, and take things slowly.