Parroquia Santiago Apostol

While not exactly a typical tourist site, the abandoned salt works that was once the Fábrica Sulfatos de Viesca S.A. is a cool place to get some dramatic photos of some eerie salt plains as well as to do a bit of Urbex in what's left of the industrial plants (including a couple of chimneys, some crumbling walls, and some rusty tanks and probably dangerous underground works). Once the town's major employer, the factory closed in 1993 and the site has been abandoned for over 30 years.

The town's main plaza is a large, open area with scattered palm trees reflecting the local desert climate. It's too hot to hang out on most days, but locals come out in the evenings when there are food carts selling tacos, gorditas, and churros. There are several sculptures and monuments in the plaza including some fulls-size bronze bulls. A short clock tower known as the Bicentennial Clock is here, as are the obligatory town letters. There's also a tree under which Miguel Hidalgo, father of the country, slept on a trip to Texas.

Protected natural area of sand dunes that resemble those in the Sahara with an area that allows recreational use including hiking, riding ATVs, or dune surfing (riding a surfboard down the dunes). The area looks like it could have been a set for Tatooine in the Star Wars movies, but it wasn't. It was, however, a location used in several films. The area is home to several desert species including the fringe-toed sand lizard, a threatened species endemic to the area.

If these walls could tell... Viesca has a fascinating history and the Templo de Santa Ana de Hornos was witness to pretty much all of it. The church was built by Jesuit missionaries in 1598. The hacienda next door was built some 17 years later, but then not much happened in town for more than a century. The church is rather plain, and clearly quite old, but inside it's much more opulent with lots of iconic statues and paintings and a gold churrigueresque altar full of niches for small statues.