The old mining town of Real de Catorce in San Luis Potosi was one of the 83 Pueblos Magicos featured at last weekend’s expo in the Plaza de la Liberacion.
The spooky looking image in front of the town’s stand is the “Jergas,” an apparition that lured miners to find a rich vein of ore, but from which they never returned. The legend goes that Jergas was a Spaniard who worked diligently in the mines and eventually became a boss.
When he encountered some miners who were trying to sneak out silver from the mine in the dark of night, they tried to kill him with their picks, but he survived and the next morning the four bodies of the thieves were found dead from some noxious gas, but with only a small piece of silver in their hands.
Jergas was never seen again, and supposedly took the rest of the silver to an unexplored part of the mine.