travel / Latin America / Mexico / san luis potosí
I have conflicted feelings about this post, let me explain why. There are endless examples of quaint towns brimming with unbridled nature that have been ruined by tourism. Our want to experience the ‘untouched’ ends up destroying these places. Rising prices displacing locals, habitat loss, over-development bringing in huge resorts, unmanaged waste and pollution and before you know it the place is unrecognisable and overrun by tourists. Once a lost paradise for the locals to holiday and live in, taken away and tainted.
I say this with full knowing that I am part of the problem. Throughout my travels, I have been trying to reconcile this truth and my role as a tourist. How does my presence affect the locals and how can I travel in a way that leaves a positive mark?
So with that off my chest, let me tell you about this gem.
The brief: Authentic + Nature
Huasteca Potosina is a nature lover’s dream, this region has a network of rivers and waterfalls and caves so diverse in the brightest hues of blues and jades that your jaw may drop every time you see a different one. It is located in northwest Mexico in the state of San Luis Potosi, spanning across multiple cities and towns.
The easiest base to access the nature is Ciudad Valles, there is only one hostel in the entire city. The whole time I didn’t see a single other foreigner outside the crew I was exploring with. The hostel staff spoke zero English. Now this is the type of place that truly appeals to me and if word get’s out about how magical it is, I fear it will join the long list of places that used to be paradise.
where did i hear about this place?
I was studying Spanish at language school in Australia before my trip (I highly recommend learning Spanish, especially for places like this). One of my classmates came to see me at work with her husband, I knew he was Mexican so I grilled him on where to go, I told him what I was looking for and this was the place he recommended, he said it’s where Mexicans go to holiday. Bingo.
This is my travel secret. Talking to people. Especially people from the area you’re travelling to, ie. the local residents. Some of the most incredible places I’ve visited have been found through approaching strangers or people I’ve just met, these places are usually difficult to find online. I also love the old-school nature of this type of travel. I try to only google the minimum and avoid looking at any pictures, I enjoy the feeling of being amazed. I find having a highly edited photo series of expectations can limit how dazzling a place can be.
How to Get there
I did a quick google before my trip and it sounded difficult to get to, a fair bit out of the way, off the gringo trail if you will. I decided to ask around in Mexico City rather than getting lost on my own. I asked the lovely hostel owners at Wanderlust District and they were more than happy to help guide me. They were surprised I even knew about the place. They said they go regularly but still haven’t explored half the area, it’s so big. They gave me two options-
- A bus to Cuidad Valles in San Luis Potosi which is closer to the main waterfalls
- A bus to Xilita in San Luis Potosi for the surrealist gardens by Edward James then making your way to Cuidad Valles for the waterfalls
I booked my ticket, got my butt on a comfy overnight bus and away I went!
Bus details
Terminal from CDMX: Mexico Norte ETN
Journey: 9hrs 45 mins to 10 hours
I recommend taking an overnight bus. The buses are comfortable, some fully recline with large plush seats, air con, phone charging port. They are usually freezing so bring a jumper!
Most comfortable luxury buses: Omni Bus
Booking online
1. https://www.busbud.com/en
2. ADO bus app (this is a reliable mid range bus company)
You can also just buy a ticket at the terminal (if you want to live fast and loose, my preferred approach), just check online if there are available seats and what time the buses are in case they are full/none available.
Cascada de Micos
El Nacimiento
Getting around
You need to rent a car if you’re keen to explore on your own. The waterfalls and caves are scattered and many are over an hour away with limited bus access. Alternatively you can get a taxi or book a tour but these are more costly options. After arriving, the loveliest group at the hostel invited us to explore and cruise along with them as they had two spare seats in their hire car. When they left, we tried getting around by bus and colectivo (the original uber pool) and it ended in a sketchy hitch-hiking scenario. Lesson learnt, don’t be cheap or lazy like me. Rent the car.
The Map
The bold green areas are different towns. As you can see on the map, there are over 30 different waterfall + cave areas. Some of them are expansive and sprawling with rivers with countless little pools and waterfalls for you to swim down and explore, you could spend a whole day at just one. Others are smaller and more contained. For this reason I recommend renting a car so you can stay or move on at your own pace.
I ended up visiting the following over 4 days, I will provide a little summary of each place below:
- Cascada el Meco
- Cascada el Salto
- Cascada Minas Viejas
- Nacimiento de Huichihuayan
- Cascadas de Micos
- Cascadas de Tamul
El Naranjo region is around 2 hours from Cuidad Valles and our first stop.
Cascada El Meco / El Naranjo
Holy picturesque. Light powdery blue. Long colourful wooden boats cruising gently with sweet lemon yellow butterflies fluttering overhead. Calm and tranquil. Twisted willow trees along the banks. We swam and floated, lizarding ourselves on any big rocks sticking of the water, pausing under the sun to soak it all in. Colours so vibrant you couldn’t help but stare out in wonder, wanting to immerse your whole being into this whimsical place.
Eventually the river ends with a waterfall gushing overhead. We swam right up to it and jumped into the crashing water, letting the strength of the waterfall pushing us away. Weeeee. Like kids, we swim back around to jump in, again and again until we were too tired or hungry to continue.
At the entry you are required to hire lifejackets and there are lockers for your things. There are stalls selling snacks, I had some mango + limon, mmm yum. I concluded that Mexicans know how to holiday – not a surprise, they are world experts on having a good time in my humble opinion.
Cascada El Salto / El Naranjo
Open, airy, expansive deep jade green. Once we swam to the waterfall and turned the corner behind the rock there was a hidden area with lots of little pools to explore. My favourite in El Naranjo.
Cascada minas viejas / El Naranjo
Busiest of the three, a family friendly waterfall. You need to hire life jackets at the entrance, lots of lush green grassy areas to have a picnic or read a book. There were caves of moss and foliage spilling out of the waterfall.
The drive home was 2 hours long. My new friend from CDMX and I were with a group of two Catalans and a lovely German girl, it was interesting that their personalities mirrored the place, I started to notice that type of people a place draws drastically differs even in the same country.
There was a tone of peace and contentment, they didn’t play any music in the car, there was very minimal talking. Just looking out and taking in the rolling hills, nothing more, not needing to fill the quiet. I noticed throughout the day they would just sit peacefully, gazing for an hour or more, sinking into the place, not needing any distractions, never in a rush, concerned about what’s next, just seemingly present and fully content with just being… there.
Western society has conditioned me to always be d o i n g, to tie my worth with productivity and achieving. We have been fed this idea that just s i t t i n g and b e i n g is not an effective use of time, that I could be doing something more worthwhile, eg. reading a book, listening to a podcast, listening to a Spanish lesson.
I know now, this is not only untrue but awful for us, affecting our ability to pay attention and undermining our ability to be fully present in this seemingly fleeting life. I’ve been trying to re-train this part of myself for a long time and wandering through Huasteca Potosina with these beautiful, serene people was like a masterclass in being present, held in the most spellbinding setting.
EL NACIMIENTO DE HUICHIHUAYÁN / Tamiun
This is a lesser known spot, our new friends were leaving in the afternoon. This was the closest waterfall/cave to the hostel and the only one we had time for before they had to return the rental car. There was only one other family there. It’s a cave with a waterfall inside, once you enter the cave, swimming in the clear, bright turquoise water you can see a little waterfall in the distance. The magic happens once you climb over the waterfall, the cave opens up, it is huge and other worldly. There are columns of stone with depressions, holes with beams of light streaming in. I’ve never seen anything like it.
*soul rejoices*
This was my favourite place I visited in the area, despite being the least popular. In fact if you made an itinerary for Huasteca Potosina through travel blogs and googling, this one doesn’t even come up. This is what I said wrote that day, an excerpt from my journal:
“The way being in nature makes me feel is difficult to replicate. When I stumble upon these tucked away places in nature that are so intricately beautiful while being rough and raw at the same time, the uniqueness and grandeur grounds me. I can instantly be present. Every cell in my body is here.”
Maybe you can also venture to a lesser known spot, discover your own hidden gem while you’re there. I trust they are all spectacular in their own ways.
Cascada de micos / cuidad valles
Countless waterfalls cascading down the middle of a forest, this place is massive you could explore for a week and not see them all. The vibe I got was very lord of the rings / harry potter / a magical fantasyland. There was a whomping willow at every corner (honestly like out of the movie). I felt like Gandalf was going to ride through the forest on a horse and appear at any second.
It is compulsory to hire life jackets here. There’s lots of food vendors where the boats are banked, elotes (grilled street corn) and grilled chicken galore.
My friend and I were instructed by the taxi driver to wait where we were dropped off for a ride back, he said we had to be in a car before dark as it gets a bit dangerous at night. We did as told, we were waiting 2.5 hrs before sunset… no one came. We had no signal to call for a taxi. Eventually a van (think Toyota Tarago) with tinted windows pulled up to buy water from this tiny random stand near us. There were a few families packed in, they asked if we needed a ride, the sun was setting… we decided to get in. Our phones ran out of battery (I think from trying searching for signal all day), we had no way to tell where we were going. The mum kept taking photos of us. I was scared I’m not gonna lie. Were these ransom photos?
Our hostel was an hour away. There was a kid sitting on a tiny wooden chair at my feet, the dads in the front were lecturing us about how dangerous it is for two girls to be there. I wasn’t sure if we were getting kidnapped or not.
Eventually they dropped us to the front of our hostel and everyone hopped out to give us hugs, we tried to give them money but they wouldn’t accept. It was a happy ending. In retrospect, I think because we were in a fairly rural area they had never seen Asians before… hence the photos. I’m not sure what the moral of the story is here. Maybe that 98% of people in this part of the world would give you the shirt off their back if you needed and to accept the kindness of strangers without prejudice.
Cascada de Tamul / Tamasopo
Big boi cascada (waterfall) + a butterfly haven. It was easily the biggest waterfall I’ve been to, the sheer power of that water was incredible. It reminded me of travel advice I received at the end of my trip-
‘Seek places that make you feel small’
I realise as I write this that I was doing that all along. Being in awe of the power and grandiosity of nature helps me re-calibrate my place in the world, we are a very human-centric species and it’s easy for us to get wrapped up in our very human concerns. We forget that we are no match for water flowing off a cliff. The power of nature can humble us and provide perspective.
It was just two of us at this stage, my girlfriend from CDMX and I. We went by colectivo taxi (basically shared taxi), not realising you need a car to take you to the start of the trail to the waterfall, the shared taxi didn’t have time for that. We ended up waiting for nearly an hour at the entrance to see if anyone else would take us, eventually a young Mexican family with a little girl of 5 yrs pulled up, they saw we were stranded and invited us to come with them. Mexicans are so warm and friendly.
We hiked through the lush forest through streams and up very steep rickety bamboo stairs. There were butterflies everywhere. It wasn’t even the right time for the monarch of the butterflies, all the butterflies were unexpected. I had known they migrate through this area in January but I was there in July. It was truly magical. We swam in the river, climbed rocks and jumped off them, had lunch together.
The little girl asked if I had any kangaroos *too cute. Our conversation in the car –
Little girl: “Tienes cangaros?” (Do you have kangaroos?)
Me: “Si, cuatro” (Yes, four)
Little girl: “Algun bebe?” (Any babies)
Me: “No.. no bebes” (No.. no babies)
Little girl: *disappointed face scrunch
*disclaimer: Australians don’t actually own kangaroos as pets.
You can ride a boat down closer to the powerful crashing waterfall but it was too long a hike for the little girl. I enjoyed taking our time just chilling and chatting, I preferred not doing the touristy activity for once, riding around with them eating Mexican snacks speaking broken Spanish, gives me the warm fuzzies thinking about it now.
“It’s those little human moments that are the ones that stick with you forever, the random acts of kindness.”
Anthony Bourdain
