Cedral

Cedral is a farming and ranching town on the high plains northeast of Real de Catorce, about 1,700 meters above sea level and just north of the Tropic of Cancer. It began as a cattle hacienda mentioned by a Franciscan chronicler in 1726, was named Santa María de la Asunción del Cedral by the friars in 1795, and became a municipality in 1826.

Its main building is the Parroquia de la Virgen de la Asunción, designed by the architect Octaviano L. Cabrera and dated to 1910. The town's big party runs from July 31 to August 15 in honor of the Virgin, with bullfights, horse races, cockfights and dances. Local workshops make utensils from ixtle, the fiber of desert agaves, and the signature dish is conejo ixtlero, rabbit cooked desert-style.

Cedral is also known to archaeologists around the world for Rancho La Amapola, on the edge of town. Excavations in the 1970s and 1980s found evidence of human activity alongside the bones of mammoths and other extinct animals, in layers dated to more than 30,000 years ago, making it one of the key sites in the debate about when people first reached the Americas. There is little to see at the site itself, but it gives a walk around this quiet town an unexpected depth.