Plateros is a small town on the edge of the high desert plateau in Zacatecas, a few kilometres from the silver city of Fresnillo, and it exists, more or less, because of one small figure on an altar. The Santo Nino de Atocha, a child dressed as a pilgrim and carrying a basket and a staff, is revered here as a protector of travellers, prisoners and the sick. The devotion came from Spain, where the original image belongs to the shrine of Atocha in Madrid, and it was carried across the Atlantic by the Spanish miners who came for Zacatecas silver. The sanctuary at Plateros became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Mexico.
Inside, the walls are almost covered by small tin paintings and photographs left by people who believe the child answered a prayer. These retablos and ex-votos are charmingly crude and sometimes startling, with car crashes, operations, floods and narrow escapes, each with a short, painfully sincere caption. It is hard not to be moved. Outside, the market stalls sell candles, baby shoes for the figure, and little clay toys, and the pilgrims arrive in groups on foot, by bus, and on bicycle. The sanctuary is part of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro listing, the old silver road that ran from Mexico City to the northern frontier.
For the rider, this is good open-country motorcycling, though not exactly twisty. Highway 45 runs through a plain of mesquite, nopal cactus and dry grassland at about 2,200 metres, so the air is thin and the nights are cold, even when the days are warm. Distances are long, trucks are many, and shoulders are narrow. The main interest is the wide sky and the hills in the distance, red and violet at sunset. In summer, sudden storms roll in with intense lightning.
Fresnillo, six kilometres away, is a mining city of well over a hundred thousand people, with fuel, hotels and plenty of tacos and fruit juices. Zacatecas city, with its pink-stone baroque centre and cable car, is a rewarding hour or so to the south-east.