The south end of the beach at Hua Hin, Thailand.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Hua Hin, Thailand.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Maldives on March 23rd.

Sunday, December 9, 2018

Exploring the city of San Luis Potosi, Mexico

While the property here at El Faro de Peter RV Park is not as well maintained as it could be, our host Peter makes up for it. He's a friendly, helpful guy. We asked about taking the bus into the city of San Luis Potosi (the locals simply call it San Luis) and he replied in Spanish, "no, let me take you... I am at your service".

He has a big 7 passenger Suburban SUV. I asked the cost, and he said it was his pleasure.

So what we did was we split the group up... those who wanted to join the more active group could go with us and we would explore on foot. Then, Peter would take us with the less active group the next day and we would do a little less walking, and a bus tour.

We didn't leave here until about 11:15am, and it's about a half hour drive to do the 24 km (15 mile) distance to "el centro" area of San Luis.

San Luis (greater population around 2 million) is one of the very few Mexican cities that we have never been to. So Ruth had taken a few pages out of our Lonely Planet Mexico book and we set off to see the major sights.

A courtyard in one of the University buildings.

Lots of poinsettias on display.
In Spanish, they are called nochebuenas.

An odd statue.

Then, we wandered a bit. There are a lot of pedestrian only streets in the downtown core.
Lots of people out enjoying the beautiful weather.

I was looking for an ATM. But all of the bank machines had big lines of at least 15 or 20 people!  I asked Peter about this later, and he said that it was because most people would have just received their Christmas bonus. I eventually found an ATM at a co-op type of bank, and it actually had the lowest fee of any I have ever used. There was nobody there!

One of the many churches in downtown.

Peter had pointed out a restaurant that he said has very good food, so we made our way over there for lunch. It seemed a bit pricey, and we have seen where the plates are huge, so we decided to split a plate of enchiladas potosinos, a specialty of the area.

This is a split plate!

The plate included one drink and we had a glass of agua de jamaica, a popular and refreshing drink made from hibiscus flowers.

The bill including tip was 120 pesos ($6.10 USD, $8.20 CAD) for the two of us, and we each received a plate like the one pictured above. Just enough, and delicious! Have we mentioned lately how much we love Mexico?

The cathedral and the central plaza.

You will notice in the photo above that the towers of the cathedral are different colors. It was originally built between 1660 and 1730 and it had just one tower. The second tower was added in the 20th century.

On a Saturday, the churches are busy with weddings.

The Palacio Municipal had an interesting staircase.

Our group yesterday.
Kevin, Roy, Susan, Bob, Denise, Ruth, and Garth.

Artisan market.

San Francisco Plaza.

We had to wait for another wedding to finish before we could enter the church.

Very ornate.

One of the odd highlights in this church is the crystal ship hanging before the altar.

There's the bride.

The plaza at the rear of the church.

Look at the detail around that window! 

A nice quiet spot in the busy downtown area.

Peter met us at our agreed upon spot at 3:00pm and brought us back to the RV Park. Despite the fact that he said there was no charge, we took up a collection and gave him some gas money which he gratefully accepted.

San Luis Potosi is definitely worth a visit to the central area. Today, we are heading back downtown again, this time with the other half of our group! We will do some different things though, including a bus tour of el centro and we will try a different spot to have lunch.

Temperature yesterday was around 20C (68F), with lots of sunshine. Low overnight 11C (52F).

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Big sale on Amazon brand active wear today...


And in Canada...



18 comments:

  1. Great photos and a wonderful description...thanks for sharing!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you very much, so glad that you enjoyed the post. :-)

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  2. Replies
    1. Yes, it is a pretty town. We are definitely glad that we stopped in here for a visit. :-)

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  3. A beautiful town! We'll visit there someday… Lunch looks yummy.

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    1. It is definitely worth the visit. Peter the owner of the campground says you need at least 5 days to visit it properly and we believe it!

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  4. That looks like a beautiful town. And Peter does sound like a real character.
    In a very nice way. I’m enjoying following you on this wonderful trip.

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    1. It is a beautiful city. We have really enjoyed our visit here. Peter is a wonderful host, very helpful and friendly.

      So happy you are enjoying our trip virtually so far. :-)

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  5. Looks like that worked out really well. Another gem of a town.

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    1. It's a really nice town and we only saw a small portion of it. We could definitely have spent more time exploring it. I could see us coming back here again and Peter, the owner is a really nice, helpful guy.

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  6. Interesting fact about the church with one old and one new spire. The oldest looking spire is actually the newer one, a testimony to old craftsmanship or maybe material. There are so many restaurants to choose from in San Louis!

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    1. Yep, that is interesting, I was sure that it was the other way around like most people would think.

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  7. Great photos of the places we didn’t get to see today. Thanks for another great blog Kevin!

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    1. Glad that you enjoyed it Lynnette. Sorry that we didn't have time to see some of these places when we were out with you but you did get to see things the other group didn't see.

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    2. No need for apologies Ruth... you and Kevin are doing a fantastic job of planning and making sure everyone gets a fair share of adventures and experiences. Besides, Kevin’s pics and blogs make up for everything we miss.

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    3. Thank you Lynnette, we are certainly trying to make sure that everyone enjoys themselves. :-)

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