Templo de San Juan Parangaricutiro

When Paricutín began erupting in 1943, San Juan Parangaricutiro was the main town of the area, with close to 1,900 people. For more than a year its residents watched the lava creep closer. In May 1944 they left, walking for days with their revered image of the Señor de los Milagros to an old hacienda near Uruapan, where they founded Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro. A few weeks later, in June 1944, the lava reached the town and buried it.

Only the church held out. Today its stone facade and one complete bell tower rise out of a jagged field of black rock, along with part of a second tower that was still under construction when the volcano was born and was never finished. Behind it, the apse and the area around the altar also survive, half swallowed by rock.

It is one of the most striking sights in Mexico, and much easier to reach than the volcano itself: a walk or horse ride of about an hour from Angahuan, with a clear view of the Paricutín cone in the distance.