I’m used to getting a puzzled expression after I inform folks I dwell in Guanajuato, Mexico. Half the time, mentioning that I’m an hour and a half from San Miguel de Allende doesn’t assist both. So I’d enterprise a guess that perhaps 2 out of 100 folks I’d run throughout exterior of Mexico know something about San Luis Potosi, one state as much as the north. However this is without doubt one of the greatest locations for thrills due to all of the Huastaca adventures on provide.
Like many states in Mexico, it’s an enigma to foreigners, some dot on the map that doesn’t ring a bell of their thoughts, the place there’s no body of reference. It’s inland, removed from the seashore paradise resorts. For those who’re into journey journey although, the japanese a part of the state is a spot that can blow your thoughts.
I’ve been a journey author after which editor for nicely over twenty years, so regardless of my greatest efforts, I’ve gotten a bit of jaded. Locations billed as “spectacular” and “one in every of a sort” normally aren’t, and with everybody posting all the pieces they do on-line in actual time, it’s laborious to discover a place you haven’t seen 100 instances earlier than you even get there.
The Huasteca area of San Luis Potosi is a unique story although. The area is known as after the Huastec indigenous group that prolonged over what’s now seven states in the course of the Mesoamerican interval. Now it’s largely outlined as an space in elements of Queretaro, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosi. The latter has a lot of the journey choices, with Ciudad Valles serving as the bottom for journey excursions.
Water Adventures Close to Ciudad Valles
After I toured the realm, we began out with a bang. On the primary day, we did this white water rafting journey on the Tampaon River with Huaxteca.com Adventures. I’m in that photograph (inexperienced shirt), main us into the rapids whereas our skilled information navigated the currents.
Yeah okay, you possibly can go white water rafting in a variety of locations and scenes like that aren’t unusual. The expertise is noteworthy right here although for quite a few causes.
The canyon surroundings was spectacular and if we hadn’t been there throughout wet season, the water would have been a greenish blue like this place the place we went rappelling down a cliff later that very same day:
That was simply the warm-up although, as a result of the subsequent day we went waterfall leaping. Similar to it sounds, that meant leaping from the highest of the waterfall into the churning water beneath. Then you definately swim to the highest of the subsequent one and do it once more.
It appears to be like scarier than it truly is because the churning water beneath means you’ll all the time have a delicate touchdown if you hit. You begin with a small waterfall, float for a bit, then they get progressively greater. The final one was 18 meters, or round 50 ft. I felt like an motion film star.
You’ve got a helmet and a life jacket on the entire time and are inspired to put on good water footwear with an actual tread. The guides who had been with us on all these actions had been well-trained {and professional}. And sure, a few of them communicate English nicely, which isn’t all the time a given within the inside, however they had been fluent.
That wasn’t sufficient although, so we visited one other place the place for those who’re staying on the attractive Huasteca Secreta Lodge (with a superb restaurant), you are able to do a loopy expertise that’s like nothing else I’ve ever felt. There’s an enormous, monster, churning waterfall coming down between two cliffs. You go downstream a bit, don the life jacket and helmet, and bounce within the clear blue water. The entire space is sort of a large eddy, so that you really drift to the waterfall as a substitute of away from it if you go in from the shore on the lodge aspect.
If you’re nearly as much as the purpose the place it might pummel you underneath a ton of water, you do a couple of mountain climbing strikes and rise up out of the water. Then you definately swim throughout the present till it picks you up going the opposite path. Spherical journey and also you’re again the place you began, right here:
After which we went scuba diving in a lake…
All that was over three days, in a really small a part of one state.
Different Huasteca Adventures in San Luis Potosi
When you have extra time, you are able to do greater than we managed throughout that go to. I used to be within the space one other time and visited the unimaginable Edward James surrealist sculpture park within the magic city of Xilitla.
It’s really some of the weird and fascinating websites I’ve been to in North America, with fanciful large concrete sculptures in a lush jungle, one man’s costly passion that he invested tens of millions of {dollars} in over time whereas he hob-nobbed with Dali and Magritte.
You will get there from Ciudad de Valles, however the extra fascinating route is to drive up by way of the mountains of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere of Queretaro. You can too cease off at historic Spanish missions, go on hikes within the biosphere, or hit some Queretaro wineries on the way in which.
The opposite huge attraction is the Sotano de las Golondrinas. Meaning the “Cave of Swallows” however the large flocks of birds that depart within the morning and return at nightfall are actually swifts and inexperienced parakeets. It’s not removed from Xilitla so you possibly can mix the 2 actions.
Make some plans for those who’ll be in central Mexico and take a look at some Huasteca adventures which are action-packed and distinctive.
