Texas' Peyote Hunters Struggle to Find a Vanishing, Holy Crop

Humberto Fernández—known universally as Don Humberto in the village of Real de Catorce, Mexico—eats peyote for breakfast. One button—it's just enough to get him going for the day.

Don Humberto was a young Mexican hippie bumming around California in the 1970s when he heard about peyote growing wild near a ghost town in the mountains of central Mexico. As it turned out, the ghost town—Real de Catorce—was close to his hometown in the state of San Luis Potosí.

"I was hanging out in the esoteric sections of bookstores in California and reading about the Huichol Indians and peyote," he says. "I said, 'Wow, that's where I'm from.' I didn't know anything about it growing up."

On a whim, Don Humberto moved to the town and started renovating a colonial building a few blocks from the cathedral. He turned it into a boutique hotel that catered to Europeans who had heard about peyote. About 10 years ago, primarily through word of mouth, peyote tourism in the town boomed.

Before he knew it, Don Humberto was hosting Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, who came to town to film The Mexican. He points to a corner of his restaurant where Pitt ate breakfast every morning for two months. Don Humberto, with his aquiline nose and stringy black-and-gray beard, looks like a Hollywood character actor—the classic ethnic bad guy. His involvement with The Mexican led to a bit part in the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but his heart is still in Real de Catorce, where he's the most recognizable face in town.

"I came here as a dropout," he says. "There was nothing in town when I arrived. There was one lady on the corner who sold rice, beans and eggs. That was it. People asked me why I was coming here, but I had a dream, a vision."

About 90 percent of the town's economy revolves around tourism. There isn't much to see in the town—an old church, some crumbling colonial architecture and abandoned silver mines. The sacred mountain of the Huichol, Wirikuta, is just an hour's horseback ride away.

While most of the locals embrace the new peyote tourism, it also attracts some unsavory characters. On street corners, young men harass foreigners for a "ride in the desert." For about $70, they'll take tourists out to the peyote gardens below the mountains. It's technically illegal, but no one seems to care much. As Don Humberto says, peyote tourists are the core of the town's livelihood.

He's hoping that Indians longing for the lost peyote gardens of South Texas will work their way to his little village on a mountaintop. He's already seen a few relocate to Real. An Indian from San Antonio bought a house and lives there part-time. Then Don Humberto and his Swiss wife, Cornelia, met a group of Indians near the Four Corners who promised to come.

"They said they had a vision that was leading them down here," says Cornelia, who was attracted to Real 20 years ago, in part because of peyote. "But peyote's not for everyone," she adds.

Cornelia and Don Humberto see peyote tourism as both a blessing and a curse. When tourists first started arriving in big numbers, local police preyed on them. "Police used to harass foreign tourists," Cornelia says. "They'd take watches and cameras as bribes. Now, they leave everyone alone."

She says that there's an unspoken agreement that police will never go into the desert looking for peyote seekers. "But," she says, "if you take it out and get caught with it, you could go to prison."

The Mexican government also has ambivalent feelings about the foreign influx. It has designated the area around Real de Catorce as a protected natural and cultural reserve. Although the government wants to promote tourism to the region, it also passes out fliers warning peyote seekers that the collection and trafficking of the cactus can be punished with up to 25 years in prison.

On the other hand, there's a long history of peyote's use as a folk medicine in northern Mexico. Mexicans have been using peyote as a cure-all for rheumatism, arthritis and other ailments for centuries. They drink it in teas or rub it directly on the skin.