Silver built Zacatecas, and the city still wears it like a coat. In 1546, a few years after the Spanish crushed the Indigenous rising of the Mixtón War, prospectors found a rich vein in the hills here, and within a generation the town was one of the wealthiest in the Americas, shipping silver across the Atlantic and bankrolling the Spanish crown. The money went into churches and mansions, and the centre, listed by UNESCO in 1993, is a tight, steep tangle of pink-stone buildings in a ravine between two hills, 2,400 metres above the sea.
The cathedral is the showpiece, built in the middle of the eighteenth century, and its main facade is a riot of carved stone, saints and angels and vines, in a baroque so exuberant that it looks poured rather than chiselled. Pink cantera stone, quarried locally, is used throughout the city and takes a rosy colour at sunset. You can ride a cable car, the teleférico, over the rooftops to the Cerro de la Bufa, the rocky crag that overlooks the city and was the scene of a great battle in 1914, when Pancho Villa's army took Zacatecas from federal troops and broke the back of the regime. The view from the top is wide, and the wind whips.
The El Edén mine, in the hillside, offers tours of old silver tunnels, entered by a little train, and a few streets away is the Callejón del Beso, a very narrow alley with a romantic legend. Zacatecas has several fine museums, and the old convent at Guadalupe, in the neighbouring town, holds a big collection of colonial painting.
Motorcycles have a hard time in the city centre. The streets are narrow, steep and cobbled, with one-way systems that confuse everyone, and the surface is slippery after rain. Leave the bike in a hotel garage or a car park on the edge, and take the cable car or walk. At this altitude engines can feel breathless, especially older carburettor machines, and the sun burns faster than you expect. Evenings are cool even in summer.
Fuel is easy in Zacatecas and neighbouring Guadalupe, which together have a quarter of a million people, so fill up before leaving for the long roads across the plateau. Try the local cooking: asado de boda, a pork stew in chilli sauce traditionally served at weddings, and a glass of mezcal or the local colonche, a fermented prickly-pear drink.