La Aduana

La Aduana is the old mining camp that made Álamos rich. It sits in the hills about 8 kilometers west of town and was founded in 1683 as the Real de Minas de Nuestra Señora de Balvanera de la Aduana, after Spanish prospectors found silver and turquoise here. The mines worked, on and off, for more than two centuries and finally shut down in 1906.

Today only a couple of hundred people live here, among stone ruins and adobe houses, and the village feels half abandoned in the best way. Its heart is the church of the Virgin of Balvanera. Local legend says Indigenous miners saw a young woman standing on top of a tall cactus; when they reached it she was gone, but a vein of silver lay at its foot, and the church was built on that spot. Look up at the outside wall and you will see a cactus growing straight out of the masonry.

Every November 21 the quiet village fills with pilgrims for the feast of the Virgin of Balvanera, a celebration held since the 18th century. In the summer rainy season, roughly July to October, the arroyo behind the village can turn into a small waterfall.