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Paquimé, the place of the big houses, is an ancient pre-Hispanic city located in the state of Chihuahua, made up of various buildings whose main characteristic is the use of adobe, wood and stone for their construction. The unique characteristics of the construction techniques used allowed the existence of buildings with two or even three stories high, housing more than two thousand inhabitants during its period of splendor (1200-1450 AD). The development of the Casas Grandes culture and its center Paquimé, covered the northwest of the Sierra Madre Occidental, most of the northwest of Chihuahua, as well as some areas of Sonora, Arizona and New Mexico, covering completely different ecozones with different adaptation challenges, such is the case of Cueva de la Olla, located 50 kilometers from Paquimé. It is a peripheral settlement of the Casas Grandes Culture located in the heart of the sierra in a small intermontane valley. Cueva de la Olla is a perfect example of the so-called cliff houses, a series of caves, whose interior rooms were built with adobe and which sometimes contained a huge granary that allowed the storage of food. Let us follow Juan Villoro's chronicle through the desert and unearth together the mysteries of Paquimé, the city of large houses.