Huasca de Ocampo

The basalt columns rise from the gorge like a pipe organ built by geology — hexagonal prisms, five storeys tall, arranged with a precision that looks engineered rather than erupted. Mist threads between the columns at dawn, and the waterfall that cascades past them catches the early light in sheets of silver.

Huasca de Ocampo is a small highland town in Hidalgo state, designated one of Mexico's Pueblos Mágicos, centred around the extraordinary basalt columns at Santa María Regla. The columns were formed by the rapid cooling of volcanic lava, creating hexagonal prisms that rise from the gorge of the Río de los Prismas. Alexander von Humboldt sketched these formations during his 1803 expedition to New Spain, introducing them to European scientific literature. Former haciendas in the surrounding valley — including the Hacienda de Santa María Regla, built in the 16th century to process silver ore — have been converted into atmospheric hotels surrounded by pine forest and trout-stocked lakes. The town sits at 2,100 metres in the Sierra de Pachuca, its climate cool and pine-scented. Cornish pasties (pastes) — brought by Welsh and Cornish miners in the 19th century — have become a local speciality, now stuffed with mole, tinga, and other Mexican fillings.