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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