Paquimé

I visited this WHS in spring 2024. I drove to Nuevo Casas Grandes from Hermosillo airport (8 hrs) and apart from a few military checkpoints along the highway where the Trump wall is visible, the only minor issue were the many potholes. If you happen to have a rental car with hub caps, I suggest removing them or buying straps as otherwise you'll most certainly lose them while driving to/from Paquimé. Keep in mind that it can get very cold after sunset and especially in the morning with the formation of morning dew; but after that it quickly gets very hot.

The ancient city of Paquimé is located just 60 miles south of the US border in a fertile valley of the Casas Grandes or San Miguel River in the northern part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The archaeological zone of the city covers about 370 acres thus making it the largest that represents the peoples and cultures of the Chihuahua Desert. Paquimé is said to contain the most monumental and complex architecture in all of northern Mexico. It is quite possible that Paquimé has been influenced by Chaco Canyon and the peoples of the Four Corners region, as evidenced in some of the construction methods used at the city, such as T-shaped doors and the facades with porticoes.

In addition to the mud-and-gravel brick 4 storey apartments, in Paquimé one can find great plazas and public spaces, a complex irrigation and sewage system, ball courts built …

Paquimé, located over 1,700 km north of Mexico City, is a site that is often overlooked. It doesn’t have the great monuments that other pre-Columbian Mexican sites are known for. It’s a niche site for archaeologists, exemplifying architectural and trading links between the area of the Classic Pueblo sites (now located in the Southwest USA) and Mesoamerica. Research has never been intensive, as archaeologists traditionally focus on either one of these worlds. But I was pleasantly surprised by its size and good condition. For me, it closed a circle after having already seen the other Puebloan sites of Mesa Verde, Taos, and Chaco. A visit also brings a lot of insight into the specific history of this region, always so far away from everything.

After walking past the still closed entrance barrier at the opening hour of 10 a.m., I was welcomed in by the guard and his German shepherd dog (I kept a safe distance, much more than 1.5m!) and sent on my way to walk the circuit that is signposted at the site. The first structure one encounters here is the ball court – it looks like a simpler version of the Mayan ones. The presence of a Mesoamerican ballcourt at Paquimé is often given as an example of the fusion of cultures that happened here, but the northern cultures had their own kind of ball courts as well and we do not even know whether they all played the same game.

The settlement consisted of …

On our US road trip in may 2018, we spent a day going south to visit Paquime. From Tucson we crossed the border at Aqua Prieta and we had no trouble crossing the border. We bought Mexican car insurance from Thrifty, one of the few car rentals that allow driving into Mexico. We had very few expectations to the Mexican road trip but were really surprised. The first 100 km along the US boarder was very scenic, with mostly good roads.

Paquime was very calm. On a Saturday there were a few other Mexican tourists around, but “none” foreign. Paquime is largest pre-columbian site in North America. The visitor center was informative and explained well the city and people living there, and had a small, but nice exhibition of pottery and figurines. The people of Paquime were excellent craftsmen. The city was established in 1100 century by people coming from north. The citys construction was made up of innovative adobe techniques. They built multi-familiar complexes, some of them counting four floors and more than 1700 rooms. That’s why the Spaniards called the place Casas Grandes. It was called Paquime by the natives who lived there for about 300 years. The multi-family complexes and the T-shaped doorways is significant to the city. Later we also found traces of those doorways in Chaco Canyon, but not to the same extend.

There were also open plazas for markets, ceremonial structures, mounds with architectural features in the form of decapitated birds, ball …

Paquime is a great place to visit, it is not that far from the border with Texas and New Mexico. You can even visit it for a weekend getaway. The museum is excelent, and it is not expensive. While in the area, you can choose from various hotels and good restaurants. For all of you guys who always have to be checking your e-mails, you can visit "El Cybernetico" an internet cafe in Nuevo Casas Grandes.

Casas Grandes is a 50 mile drive south of the New Mexico, USA border into Chihuahua, Mexico on a good highway. The adobe or mud city is partially restored and provides a good example of how the pueblo native americans settled down. The adjoining museum is excellent. Nuevo Casas Grandes is just 15km down the road with great restaurants and motels. Also, you don't need to speak Spanish to get there. Like other pueblo indian sites, the dwellings are apartment style buildings with everyone living in close quarters.