Paseo del Viejo Oeste

Durango's desert - flat, dry, backed by sierra and lit hard - stood in for the American West in well over a hundred films from the 1950s onward, and the sets built for them became a local industry of their own. The Paseo del Viejo Oeste, on the old Chupaderos location north of the city, keeps a full western street: saloon with swing doors, sheriff's office and jail, bank, church, hotel and general store in weathered timber, with hitching rails, water troughs and a stagecoach. Actors in period dress stage gunfights, bank robberies and cantina brawls through the day, horses and carriages carry visitors along the street, and a small museum recalls the productions and stars who worked here - John Wayne foremost among them, whose association with Durango is a point of civic pride. It is unabashedly a tourist attraction and honest about it, aimed squarely at families, and the surrounding landscape is the real thing: the same horizons that made the location work in the first place.

What to look for

• The western street - saloon, jail, bank and church in timber.
• The staged shootouts - actors working the set through the day.
• The film museum - productions shot in Durango's desert.
• The location itself - the horizons that drew the cameras.

When to go

October to April; midday for the fullest show schedule, though the desert sun is fierce. Weekends and holidays are busiest and liveliest.

Good to know

It is a theme attraction rather than a preserved set - expect entertainment, souvenir stalls and family programming. Shows run in Spanish. Nearby original locations at Chupaderos village are more atmospheric but largely ruined.

Nearby

Durango city's baroque centre is twenty minutes south; the Espinazo del Diablo road to the coast starts there too.