I’m used to getting a puzzled expression when I tell people I live in Guanajuato, Mexico. Half the time, mentioning that I’m an hour and a half from San Miguel de Allende doesn’t help either. So I’d venture a guess that maybe 2 out of 100 people I would run across outside of Mexico know anything about San Luis Potosi, one state up to the north. But this is one of the best destinations for thrills because of all the Huastaca adventures on offer.
Like many states in Mexico, it’s an enigma to foreigners, some dot on the map that doesn’t ring a bell in their mind, where there’s no frame of reference. It’s inland, far from the beach paradise resorts. If you’re into adventure travel though, the eastern part of the state is a place that will blow your mind.
I’ve been a travel writer and then editor for well over two decades, so despite my best efforts, I’ve gotten a little jaded. Places billed as “spectacular” and “one of a kind” usually aren’t, and with everyone posting everything they do online in real time, it’s hard to find a place you haven’t seen a hundred times before you even get there.
The Huasteca region of San Luis Potosi is a different story though. The region is named after the Huastec indigenous group that extended over what is now seven states during the Mesoamerican period. Now it’s mostly defined as an area in parts of Queretaro, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosi. The latter has most of the adventure options, with Ciudad Valles serving as the base for adventure tours.
Water Adventures Near Ciudad Valles
When I toured the area, we started out with a bang. On the first day, we did this white water rafting trip on the Tampaon River with Huaxteca.com Adventures. I’m in that photo (green shirt), leading us into the rapids while our experienced guide navigated the currents.
Yeah okay, you can go white water rafting in a lot of places and scenes like that are not uncommon. The experience is noteworthy here though for a number of reasons.
The canyon scenery was spectacular and if we hadn’t been there during rainy season, the water would have been a greenish blue like this place where we went rappelling down a cliff later that same day:
That was just the warm-up though, because the next day we went waterfall jumping. Just like it sounds, that meant jumping from the top of the waterfall into the churning water below. Then you swim to the top of the next one and do it again.
It looks scarier than it really is since the churning water below means you’ll always have a soft landing when you hit. You start with a small waterfall, float for a bit, then they get progressively higher. The last one was 18 meters, or around 50 feet. I felt like an action movie star.
You have a helmet and a life jacket on the whole time and are encouraged to wear good water shoes with a real tread. The guides who were with us on all these activities were well-trained and professional. And yes, some of them speak English well, which isn’t always a given in the interior, but they were fluent.
That wasn’t enough though, so we visited another place where if you’re staying at the gorgeous Huasteca Secreta Hotel (with an excellent restaurant), you can do a crazy experience that’s like nothing else I’ve ever felt. There’s a huge, monster, churning waterfall coming down between two cliffs. You go downstream a bit, don the life jacket and helmet, and jump in the clear blue water. The whole area is like a giant eddy, so you actually drift to the waterfall instead of away from it when you go in from the shore on the hotel side.
When you’re almost up to the point where it would pummel you under a ton of water, you do a few rock climbing moves and get up out of the water. Then you swim across the current until it picks you up going the other direction. Round trip and you’re back where you started, here:
And then we went scuba diving in a lake…
All that was over three days, in a very small part of one state.
Other Huasteca Adventures in San Luis Potosi
If you have more time, you can do more than we managed during that visit. I was in the area another time and visited the incredible Edward James surrealist sculpture park in the magic town of Xilitla.
It is truly one of the most bizarre and interesting sites I’ve been to in North America, with fanciful giant concrete sculptures in a lush jungle, one man’s expensive hobby that he invested millions of dollars in over the years while he hob-nobbed with Dali and Magritte.
You can get there from Ciudad de Valles, but the more interesting route is to drive up through the mountains of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere of Queretaro. You can also stop off at historic Spanish missions, go on hikes in the biosphere, or hit some Queretaro wineries on the way.
The other big attraction is the Sotano de las Golondrinas. That means the “Cave of Swallows” but the huge flocks of birds that leave in the morning and return at dusk are really swifts and green parakeets. It’s not far from Xilitla so you can combine the two activities.
Make some plans if you’ll be in central Mexico and check out some Huasteca adventures that are action-packed and unique.
