At last we emerged from the dark hole. In the morning light, Real de Catorce clung to the rock-rimmed precipices like an apparition from a forgotten past. It's so incredibly remote: nothing but horizons of bare rock twisted into a vast maze of mesas, craters, canyons and peaks, shattered like the dreams of wealth that once lured miners.

Dick downshifted and tapped the gas pedal. The big Mercury Grand Marquis muscled over the stone road, followed the contour of the mountain pass, then rumbled to a halt on a level plateau facing "Ogarrio," the one way tunnel archway to Real de Catorce, an abandoned silver mining town.

Real de Catorce, founded by the Spanish in 1778, is located in the rugged Sierra Madre Oriental range of central Mexico. Ogarrio remains the only adequate entrance. The air was thick and humid despite being at an altitude above 9000 feet. Dick cut the motor. We waited behind a once-white Chevy with bald tires for our turn to enter the black, gaping mouth of Ogarrio.

"Looks like the entrance to a grave," Dick said. The gate man waved us into Ogarrio's black hole. We drove slowly. The big Marquis stirred up the silicate dust, which lingered in the cool, damp chambers. Every hundred or so feet, small electric bulbs dangled from the roof on the tunnel, casting halos across the silhouetted cavities of gouged rock, as if the Virgin of Atocha, the patron saint of miners, were giving us her protective blessing. Ogarrio's irregular bore, a mile-and-a-half long, was dug during the last century by mestizo workers. An amazing feat, I thought, as I pictured them with their picks flailing spark-flying rock inch-by-inch, foot-by-foot, day-by-day. "How many died in this hell?" I asked myself.

Every hundred or so feet, small electric bulbs dangled from the roof on the tunnel, casting halos across the silhouetted cavities of gouged rock, as if the Virgin of Atocha, the patron saint of miners, were giving us her protective blessing.

At last we emerged from the dark hole. In the morning light, Real de Catorce clung to the rock-rimmed precipices like an apparition from a forgotten past. It's so incredibly remote: nothing but horizons of bare rock twisted into a vast maze of mesas, craters, canyons and peaks, shattered like the dreams of wealth that once lured miners.

At its height of prosperity in the nineteenth century, Real de Catorce boasted a population of 15,000 inhabitants and mined an estimated $3 million worth of silver yearly. It had water drainage, paved streets, ball courts, a mint, a bullring and even an opera house, where Caruso reportedly sang.

During the Mexican Revolution (1910-1921), it became a ghost town and served for a while as a hideaway for banditos. Today, a small population ekes out an existence. There are a few restaurants, hotels and stores that cater to the town's adventurous visitors like us. We stopped in the big plaza sprawled out on the other side of Ogarrio. Dick rolled down the window to let fresh air in and we surveyed the scene.

"You need a guide?" a voice spoke up in Spanish.

I saw no one. Dick leaned out the car window, "No, we need a restaurant."

"I can take you," replied the voice, "you like Italian, you like Mexican?"

The voice didn't wait for a reply. Black hair zipped around the front of the Gran Marquis and a small hand pulled on the car door handle. I opened the door from the inside and looked toward the ground.

"¿Cómo te llamas?" I practiced my weak Spanish.

"Adriano," spoke the voice crisply.

I moved to the center of the front seat. Adriano climbed in, strained to pull the door shut, then sat stiffly upright at the edge of the seat so he could look out and give us directions.

"¿Cuántos años tienes?" I asked Adriano his age.

"Eight," he answered.

Adriano navigated us through a series of narrow, winding, steep streets bordered with rock walls and stone houses. We passed shops and stalls burrowed out of the stone escarpment. Vendors sold religious novelties to pilgrims near the church. Here and there, gaily painted awnings provided refuge from the wilting heat and added a splash of color to the labyrinth of tawny brown stone.

Dark, weathered people stared at us as we drove by. Dick asked Adriano if he knew any of them. "Yes, they are my uncles and aunts," he spoke matter-of-factly.

The road jagged to the right and we began a steep, uphill climb, then passed a sunken plaza enclosed by a black wrought-iron wall. The spiked tips, painted a gleaming silver, recalled Real de Catorce's prosperous heyday.

At the end of the road overlooking a canyon was the restaurant, "Quinta la Puesta del Sol" (The Sunset Inn). The mustard yellow exterior with large windows trimmed in sandstone red gleamed in the mid-morning sunlight. Potted plants and caged parakeets lined the walkway. "It's good," Adriano volunteered, then admitted he had never eaten here.

Before entering the restaurant, we crossed the road. On the far side, an alleyway sliced through the horizon of stone. Two burros wandered aimlessly. Adriano led us to the old, abandoned bull ring, built in the late eighteenth century. The wall stood intact, testament to former glory. The ring is now a soccer field. Looming above the bullring on a high knoll was the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Mother Protectress of Mexico.

The simple, stone-hewed church stood guardian with a faded white turreted dome and two bell towers. All around, the ground was thrown up in the shape of graves, studded with weathered and elaborately sculpted white headstones and crosses, a few sported bouquets of freshly cut daffodils and white carnations. How, I wondered, did fresh flowers ever get to a place like this?

Adriano pointed to a small, weathered wooden cross leaning against the base of the church with a sheaf of red plastic roses. Carved on it was the name Ebonarosa de Carrillo. "My grandmother," he said, again, matter-of-factly. She was only 30 when she died. Later Adriano mentioned casually that two of his older brothers, the eldest only 13 when he died, were also buried in the cemetery.

In front of the church stood the statue of Our Lady the Virgin of Guadalupe, dark complexioned and painted in bright pastels, protected from the direct sunlight by a shrine.

We had parked the car in front of Sunset Inn. The bullring, the church, the graveyard had distracted us, but now we were very hungry. The restaurant-hotel was multi-storied, terraced into the steep mountainside. The restaurant stood at street level, the hotel clung below. The cheerful restaurant gave us a panoramic view of the deep valley and the distant mountains. We ordered enchiladas and cold Victoria beers. Adriano requested a Pepsi and quesadillas. The Pepsi was an obvious treat.

I asked Adriano if he believed in ghosts. He said no, but I wondered because the whole place was awash in tales of hidden treasure, sacred ruins, and strange happenings. We heard that a black drug lord, some years back, fled from the United States to live wild in the mountains in order to find his soul and be healed. Others told a story of an eccentric American millionaire who lived in near seclusion on the canyon rim overlooking the town. People came to be healed, to find redemption, not silver, in these mountains of stone.

We missed the pilgrimages honoring the Indian spirits and Catholic saints. Each fall, the Huichol Indians trek across the broiling desert sands, collect peyote, and find their way through mountain passes to "Wirikuta," the Holy Mountain, to honor their gods. Every October 4, thousands of pilgrims flock to the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, located off the town's main street opposite the old mint, to leave offerings, give thanks and pray to the patron saint of the poor for his intervention. Parishioners built the church between 1783 and 1803 to commemorate several miraculous appearances by St. Francis. "Miraculous visions in the Land of Peyote?" Dick let his comment hang in the air.

At its height of prosperity in the nineteenth century, Real de Catorce boasted a population of 15,000 inhabitants and mined an estimated $3 million worth of silver yearly.

We turned our attention to the Church of St. Francis. Dick removed his baseball cap, folded it and stuck it in his back pocket as he entered the church. I followed behind. It was cool and serene. On the left, an old man leaned forward, his ancient straw hat rested on the floor beside his knees. His rough, work-weary hands were clasped in devotion. Candles flickered in the vaulted, cross-shaped nave. The floor moved and creaked under our weight as we took cautious steps on the irregular worn wooden inlay.

Dick stopped to examine the floor. "We're walking on coffin lids," he whispered. I looked closely, sections of floor were loose and removable. In the front, to the left of the nave, the church's thick walls were covered with drawings depicting miraculous recoveries from diseases, automobile accidents and other life-threatening situations. I nodded "Hello" to an old man resting on a church bench. He volunteered, "St. Francis is here. He saved my son."

We left Real de Catorce the same way we came in. At the entrance to Ogarrio we waited behind a line a cars. Then, the gate man approached and gave Dick a red flag, telling him to return it to the gate man on the other side. The driver of the last car in line to enter the tunnel carried the red signal flag. In this way, the one-lane tunnel was clear of on-coming traffic.

On the other side, we again were greeted by bands of small kids selling wax candles, silver-veined rocks, coca cola and candies. One young smiling girl, wearing a tee shirt with a colorful "Casper the friendly ghost" emblazoned on it, came near. For a gratuity, she offered to sing a local song, the ballad "Mananitas del Real de Catorce."

Softly she sang. The words drifted up into the mountain emptiness:
Beautiful Real de Catorce,
With streets of cobbled stone,
Its majestic church,
Given to us by God,
Came miners from afar,
To pray that their request
Be granted by
St. Francis, our patron.

This article was co-witten by Dr. Victor Walsh and Dick Davis