3 days · Real del Monte + Huasca

3 daysRelaxed pacedistance-checked ✓ · updated Jul 3, 2026

1
Real del Monte
2 nights · Pastes, fog, and the old mining works
Days 1–2
🚗 30 min — Short drive across the Pachuca highlands
2
Huasca de Ocampo
1 night · Base for the Prismas Basálticos day trip
Day 3
Reality check: Everything here clusters around Pachuca — base in the mining towns, eat your weight in pastes, and come after the summer rains or the Prismas waterfall disappoints.
By Mateo HerreraBased in Mexico City · updated Jul 3, 2026

Is this a safe weekend trip from Mexico City?

Yes, and it’s one of the easier ones. The Hidalgo highlands around Pachuca are a standard weekend escape for Mexico City families — under two hours by car or bus, well-traveled, and calm. The main thing to respect here isn’t crime, it’s the weather and the altitude: you’re up around 2,700 meters, the fog rolls in cold, and roads get slick in the rain. Drive the daylight, take it slow on the mountain curves, and this is a relaxed three days.

Days 1–2: Real del Monte, the fog and the pastes

Real del Monte is an old Cornish mining town, and the British left behind two things: a hillside cemetery and the paste. The paste is a folded pastry that started as a miner’s lunch and evolved into the local obsession — the traditional filling is potato and beef, but you’ll find mole, tinga, even pineapple. Do the obvious thing and eat several from different shops until you find your favorite. That’s the whole point of being here.

Beyond eating, walk the old mining works and the cemetery, and let the fog do its thing. The town is tiny and steep, so two nights is generous — that’s deliberate, because the pace here is meant to be slow. Evenings get properly cold, so pack a real jacket even in summer.

What a friend who lives here would tell you: don’t rush to Pachuca thinking you’re missing something. The mining towns are the trip; the city is just the airport-adjacent base most people skip.

Day 3: Huasca and the Prismas Basálticos

A short half-hour drive across the highlands brings you to Huasca de Ocampo, the base for the Prismas Basálticos — a canyon of tall hexagonal basalt columns with waterfalls running over them. Here’s the honest catch, and it’s the same one in the realityCheck: those waterfalls depend entirely on rain. Come in the dry months and you’re looking at handsome rock walls with a trickle. Come after the summer rains, roughly July through September, and the water actually falls. Plan your timing around that, or manage your expectations.