Where to Live in Mexico

I've told family and friends, "If I had to choose, right now, where to live in Mexico, I'd make it San Luis Potosi. It's Mexico's geographical center. It's an historic, colonial, cultural, and university center. It's a large city with the feel of a small town. But what I like most is how quickly from San Luis Potosi you can take side trips and show friends the variety of Mexico. Real de Catorce, the desert ghost-mining town is three hours north. Xilitla, Edward James's surrealist garden is east, over the mountains in the Huasteca where you find a paradise of waterfalls, rivers, scuba diving in mineral springs, and lush vegetation. You can make a day trip to Queretaro, or Zacatecas, or San Miguel de Allende, or Guanajuato or Dolores Hidalgo. Jarral de Berrios is a neglected hacienda that looks like a scene from a fairy tale with conical stone structures, columns and towers. If you feel you must find a beach, join the bathers in the hot springs resort at Gogorrón. There is no beach, there is no sand, but you'll have large pools, thermal baths, green grass, and shade trees."

I took my own advice. I rented a townhouse in San Luis Potosi on Calle Nicolas Zapata.

From my townhouse it's a 20-minute walk to the center, and because San Luis Potosi is colonial, there are six major parks within walking distance and an abundance of elaborately carved and well-maintained buildings and churches of architectural splendor.

The locals say, "It's the 5-hour city," meaning it's a 5-hour drive from San Luis Potosi to the major commercial and industrial markets: Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey. But for me San Luis Potosi holds a special attraction. I drop the 5-hour nomenclature in favor of "The city of 3-hour side trips," because within a 3-hour drive, often less, one can enjoy day trips with a sense of awe because of the extraordinary variety of enjoyable places to visit.

a. Local excursions: A 20-mile drive south of San Luis Potosi will take you back a century, to haciendas, a rural life, with donkey-drawn alfalfa carts and horse-drawn venders of fresh water in barrels, cows and chickens running in the streets, and pigs rooting in shallow streams.

You can soak and delight in the healing waters of the nearby hot springs at Gogorron.

Haciendas, (Jarral de Berrios, Bledos, Carranco, La Ventilla, Gogorron) are clustered for an easy visit and spectacular photography. Some haciendas are neglected and appear abandoned; others are maintained as vacation homes and used as movie sets. All add to a sense of history and the significance of a once imperial aristocracy.

b. North: Real de Catorce is the well-preserved mining town, which you enter through a one-way, mile- long tunnel at the 9000-foot level in the Sierra Madre Mountains. Here you can join a group on horseback, bringing you to even more remote ghost towns and views of the Sierras. Or, you can walk the cobblestone streets, sit in the plaza, view the old stone buildings, hike the winding, terraced streets, and gaze at the valleys beyond

You can visit an ancient cockfight ring, built like a small Roman coliseum, find calming serenity in the church of San Francisco, visit the local museum where silver coins were once struck, wander through an ancient cemetery adorned with bright plastic flowers, and dine at La Abundancia, a converted mansion.

c. East: You crest the Sierra Madre Mountains, and the brown desert high plateau switches to a lush green profusion, enhanced by rivers and waterfalls. Here you've entered La Huasteca, a paradise for picnickers, swimmers and hikers. And, if one is willing to make a circle trip and spend a night, you can follow the Corridor of Missions. There are 5 folk-Churrigueresque, polychromed, elaborate churches, built by Junipero Serra before he was called to found the missions in California.

You may reserve a night at Hotel El Castillo in Xilitla and visit the magical, surrealistic gardens built by Edward James. These are worthy of a special journey.

d. South: Dolores Hidalgo is Mexico's Cradle of Independence. It is also the revered site of the spectacular tomb that honors Mexico's foremost Ranchero singer, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, and it is the home to multicolored pottery.

If you don't spend all your time shopping in Dolores Hidalgo you can visit Mexico's unique tunneled city, Guanajuato. Here, the first battle of the War of Independence was fought in 1810. Today, Guanajuato is famed for the annual cultural event, The Cervantino. Each October, Guanajuato hosts this International Music Festival. attracting dance and theater performers from all over the world.

e. Further south, but less than 3 hours from San Luis Potosi: San Miguel de Allende is the artistic, bohemian-inspired, home to more than 10,000 ex-pats, Americans and Canadians, who have developed an exceptional community of arts, theater, culture. Their splendid homes are often opened to the public for tours and used for charitable fund raisers.

San Miguel de Allende shops carry the best handcrafts of Mexico. The size of your suitcase limits your shopping.

f. Also south: You will find Queretaro, filled with plazas, fine restaurants, a Sunday dance in the center plaza, colonial beauties, mansions and churches, and a spectacular aqueduct. There is history around every corner, including a fine museum, theater, and an opera house.

If you stay in Queretaro, choose Hotel Mansion La Marquesa. Then take side trips to Bernal, which is so colorful you will think of a Hollywood musical set, and Tesquisquiapan, with its enormous plaza and curative hot springs.

g. Northwest: Zacatecas. Here is where Mexico begins. From the El Paso border, to Zacatecas, you cross 800 miles of desert, but when you arrive in Zacatecas, it's like Dorothy landing in Oz. In the movie, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy opens the door of her tornado-twisted house, and the movie changes from black and white to color. Zacatecas is living color, a city of colonial beauty, easy to visit, with world-class museums.

Take a taxi to La Bufa. This is where one should start. See the city from the La Bufa, the rose-colored outcropping, which is shaped like the humped back of a prehistoric stegosaurus. Ride the aerial tram that glides over Zacatecas and arrives near the entrance to El Eden, the mine that gushed silver. It is now the best mining tour I've ever experienced.

Rose and green cantera stone enhance the beauty of Zacatecas' buildings. Boutiques and restaurants now occupy the old central market, which was built of iron girders and columns that remind one of the Eiffel Tower. The cathedral is a baroque masterpiece.

A night walk is a must. Zacatecas is caressed, adorned and highlighted in a spectacle of light that accents the carved beauty of its buildings and glows with multicolored fountains.

Dick Davis travels frequently. He has taught in both Mexico and Spain and is happy to share his experiences. A resolute companion in his Mexican travels is his Grand Marquis. He can be contacted at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .