Zacatecas sits high in the Mexican north, around 2,400 metres above the sea, in a bowl of red hills that were once a mountain of silver. The Spanish arrived in the 1540s after local people showed them silver outcrops, and within a few decades the city was one of the richest in the New World, its wealth carried south on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the Royal Road of the Interior Land that ran all the way to Santa Fe. The old centre, with its pink-stone cathedral, narrow stepped lanes and colonial mansions, is inscribed as World Heritage, and the road itself is listed too.
The place name Tatei Nihuetucame belongs to a different tradition. It is a name from the Wixarika, the Huichol people, who live in the mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental to the south-west, and whose cosmology is rich with sacred places across a huge territory. Every year they make long pilgrimages to sites in the desert and mountains, leaving offerings and gathering plants for ceremonies, and the sites have their own names and stories.
The ride into Zacatecas is a good one. The highways cross high, dry plains of cactus, mesquite and scrubby grassland, with long straights and sudden hills, and the air is thin and clear. Be ready for cold nights and sudden thunderstorms in summer, as well as strong sun at altitude. Cuota roads are fast, but the old roads through the mining villages are more interesting. The cable car crossing the city to the Cerro de la Bufa gives a magnificent view of the rooftops and the surrounding hills, and the old Eden silver mine can be visited on a tour.
Zacatecas and its neighbour Guadalupe have well over a hundred thousand people each, so fuel, food and lodging are easy, and the evenings are lively with students and musicians. The cuisine includes asado de boda, a spicy pork stew, and the local mezcal, and walking the lanes at dusk is an ideal way to finish a day.