Amazing Waterfalls, Delicious Food, Turquoise blue Cenotes, colorful birds, hot roads, an abyss with swallows and a Surrealistic Castle in the Wild among many other fun things were in our trip to San Luis Potosí.
(Para leer este post en Español, Dale click aquí)
After such a long time of quarantining, my family and I were really looking forward to have a family trip somewhere. As soon as my parents got the two vaccination shots, we planned to travel somewhere inside Mexico. Our opportunity came with my girlfriend Carmen. She had planned to have an eye surgery in her hometown San Luis Potosí in Central México. My family offered her a ride on my brother‘s big SUV and we will use that opportunity to travel to the east of San Luis Potosí and discover La Huasteca Potosina, one of the most famous touristical spots in Central Mexico full of natural attractions such as waterfalls, cenotes, rivers and the famous crazy house of Edward James in Xilitla.
So my parents, my brother and his wife, my girlfriend and his kid and I, we all went for this long road trip to reach La Huasteca.
Day 1: San Luis Potosí City
After arranging all the details with our respective works, we left Puerto Vallarta very early and spent the next 10 hours on the road, crossing La Estancia, Guadalajara, Lagos de Moreno and finally arriving to San Luis Potosí. My family was all tired, but Carmen and I got some extra energy to look for a Salsa bar in San Luis Potosí City (They had just opened nightlife in the city). We didn’t have luck as San Luis Potosí has not a big Salsa scene, so we ended up enjoying a great time at a retro pop bar called Epocas with a really cool vintage pop band called “Cassette“
Day 2: Puente de Dios at Tamasopo and Ciudad Valles.
San Luis Potosí is a big state that has San Luis Potosí as its capital in the west and all the Huasteca Potosina at the east. In the middle of all the nature attractions at the Huasteca, we find the warm Ciudad Valles, the second biggest city at San Luis Potosí. We decided to use this city as our general adventure headquarters. We rented a nice house called Alabel to one of Carmen‘s local friends.
Before arriving to Ciudad Valles, we stopped in a town called Tamasopo to visit the waterfalls and the cenote called “Puente de Dios” (Bridge of God). The day 2 was the second last day of Easter, so we still found a lot of tourists, a bigger crowd than what they use to have there. A good advice that we had beforehand and that I want to share with you is to bring your own lifejacket. It is compulsory to have one in many of the aquatic spots at La Huasteca. And normally you ended up having to rent one every day you come in to any of the attractions. Bring one with you if you travel by car, it is totally worthed. The Puente de Dios is beautiful. To swim at the cenote was wonderful, specially after spending a day in the hot Huasteca Potosina. The boys, we also enjoyed jumping from some cliffs directly to the water. lMy dad, enjoyed having a water drop in his head with a small waterfall he found.
We ended the day at Tamasopo enjoying the local food. San Luis Potosí is famous for the Enchiladas Potosinas, the Gorditas and the Cecina (which I didn’t eat because I don’t eat red meat.)
Día 3: Cascadas de Tamul y Rio Micos
One of the coolest places on our trip, as we all voted when we returned, was the adventure at the Tamul waterfall. This waterfall is born when the water from the Gallinas River falls into the Santa María River, thus creating another river called Tampaón. To get there, we went to the town of Tanchanchín in the municipality of Aquismón. There we hired the service of a rowboat with a guide to get to the waterfall. In addition to the spectacular view, it was a great workout. Another fun thing that happened was that when another boat passed near us, the passengers all started a water fight. (Expert tip, bring a bucket or a water gun to be more effective) It’s so refreshing! On the way back, we were able to swim down the river in the rapids and enjoy other small refreshing waterfalls along the way.
In the afternoon we enjoyed a relaxing visit to the park surrounding the Micos river, with 7 waterfalls ranging from a 30cm waterfall to a 20m one. We swam along the river and saw many colourful birds and even river turtles. There are many extreme adventures in Micos including a 165m zipline that can be crossed by bicycle.
Day 4: Surrealist gardens of Xilitla and the Sotano de las Golondrinas
When I became host at La Maison du Tango, I was surprised to discover that a lot of my foreign guests had Xilitla included in their plans for exploring México in few weeks. I was not really conscious of how wonderful this place was. The “Castlle” or “house” of the “poet”, or “king” or “saint” the English Edward James at the town of Xilitla is maybe the only surrealistic arquitecture in all Latin America. This is a castle with a lot of symbolism, with strange columns and mismatched doors, unfinished facades and stairs that lead nowhere. I really recommend you book online in advance to visit this place, especially now that they have very limited access due to Covid.
Once again, after losing ourselves in the architectural dreams of Edward James, we stopped to drink a good coffee. Xilitla is famous for its coffee, although between us, it is not as good as the one in Elforoteo. Afterwards, we headed to Aquismón, where the Sotano de las Golondrinas (basement of the swallows) and the Sotano de las Huahuas (swallow of the huasteca parrots) are. On the way to Aquismón, we stopped at the roadside vendors who advertised their ice cream and handicrafts with colorful signs.
We had limited time, so we had to choose whether to visit the Sotano de las Golondrinas or the Sotano de las Huahuas. We decided to visit the first one since it is the most famous as it is the seventh deepest abyss in the world. It is basically a hole 60 meters in diameter with a depth of 512 meters. We went there at sunset to see how the swallows fly back and go inside to spend the night. Unfortunately and due to Covid, the Sotano is closed to the public on Mondays and they do not allow children or elderly people to enter. And we were traveling there with a child, with my parents and on a Monday. So that was our big drawback of the trip.
We returned resignedly to enjoy the last day in the pool at the house in Ciudad Valles before heading back. I even had to teach a Cardio Dance class there at the Alabel house.
Day 5: Returning to San Luis Potosí City, and exploring downtown.
And for the last day, we returned to San Luis Potosí city, where Carmen will stay with her family and wait for her surgery. But we spent the last afternoon visiting the stores and the Spanish-like buildings at downtown. We ate at a nice terrace called “La Oruga y La Cebada” and we did an obvious visit to the Constanzo chocolate factory. Carmen and many of us believe that the Constanzo are the best chocolates of all Mexico. I bought my favorite Constanzo chocolates, the Tornillo.
I invite everybody who like me, loves to travel, to keep exploring all the wonders that our beautiful country México has, such as the Huasteca Potosina .
Post data: On the trip back to Puerto Vallarta, we did a lot of hours as one of the wheels was punctured. Luckily we were on the toll highway and the highway service came to change the wheel and payed us for a semi-new wheel.
Israel Andalón 