Standing in this tiny dusty fishing village 69km north of modern-day Veracruz, it’s hard to believe you’re gazing at the site of the first European-founded settlement north of Panama in mainland America. These days the historic settlement hardly merits a label on most maps, though there’s a smattering of houses here, along with a small hotel, a couple of rustic restaurants and the weed-covered foundations of some buildings constructed by Cortés and his men soon after their arrival.
Never properly consolidated, the ‘Veracruz that once was,’ founded as Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz in 1519, lasted only until 1524 when it was moved to present-day La Antigua. There's a small and attractive curved beach, and you can trace it around past some dunes and across an isthmus to the Cerro de la Cantera, a rocky outcrop famed for its plunging quebraditas (ravines).
Villa Rica is about 1km east of the main Hwy 180. Ask any bus driver on the Cardel–Nautla run to stop at the entrance road to the Quiahuiztlán ruins. From here it’s an easy walk to the village.
