Courtyard By Marriott San Luis Potosi San Luis Potosí

... for a few days, before it suddenly got cold again - less than 4 degrees at night. Don't forget that there's no central heating in the house. Since then it has reverted to mild again, but not before I caught a small dose of a virus which included a fever and aches and pains. It was a great excuse to take a couple of days off, one in bed, and the second sitting in the warm shade in gorgeous garden here at Grillo 12, studying Spanish, patting the dog, Poppi ...

... We seem to have the idea that if meat or poultry is not in a state of constant refrigeration the "salmonella monster" will surely strike us down. In the local markets meat and poultry are lying around for hours with no evidence of refrigeration. From my travels in Chile in 1999 I still remember the words of a traveler from Uruguay to this day when he said, "in our country no part of the cow goes to waste". Considering my own ...

... in our search for celebration of Christmas in Mexico. December 16 is the traditional start of Christmas celebrations. It is on this day that the first of "Las Posadas" wind their way thorough various parts of a village, town or city. They are intended to recreate the difficulties that Mary and Joseph had in finding an inn (Spanish for inn is "posada") in Bethlehem 2009 years ago. Children participate in this procession under the watchful ...

... de voyage bien réussie. Encore une fois, tout s'est passé à l'extérieur sous un soleil radieux. Pour ceux qui veulent nous suivre sur une carte, voici le trajet de ces 2 premières étapes. Nous avons traversé la frontière à la ville de Phar aux USA pour s'arrêter pour la première nuit dans la ville de Reynosa au Mexique. Nous avons ensuite suivi la route 40 pour contourner la grosse ville de Monterrey et ensuite suivre la route 57 vers le sud pour passer la 2e nuit dans les environs de San Luis Potosi.

... part of the history. I had hoped to visit a museum of Mexican masks but found that it was closed for renovations. We stopped for coffee in a cafe with big, over-stuffed chairs where it was nice to linger and people-watch for awhile. We went back to the hotel briefly before setting out for the Church of St. Francis. I had earlier peeked into the Church of St. Carmen, where there is a tremendous amount of gilding on the main altar ...

... and the hotel has at least one restaurant and an unusually emerald green pool. Of course, there is A/C, cable and good drinking water. There is an interior parking garage. In the early evening, we took a walk and ate at a cafe a few blocks away. Some of this area is blocked off to traffic, which makes walking a pleasure. I enjoyed strolling the plazas around us- and we saw a beautiful rainbow from our room!

... cages - Jaguars were worshiped and idolized by the Mayans and Toltecs and only kings and warriors would have there fur but not modern man, we like to stick them in cages and point fingers at them and watch them wither and die. So w got to the beginning of the path that would lead us through a jungle type surrounding, green and hot and humid. We got to see some very amazing and mysterious sculptures such as the famous giant Olmec heads that were found in La Venta a town nearby, the site ...

... small and relatively non-touristy. Other than the historical aspects, the only other attractions would be ceramics, and the numerous odd flavors of ice cream available in the town square. If you ever wanted to try tequila, or pork rind flavored ice cream, this would be a "must see" destination. We stuck with some more traditional flavors, but the whiskey ice cream actually turned out to be very tasty!

We took a one day side trip to neighboring Queretaro, a city of about 1 million people with a light industrial and distribution base for good employment. It has a historical town center that is very flat and easily walkable. It was also a center of the Mexican Independence in 1810. You can get there easily from SMA by bus and it is worth about 1/2 to 3/4 of a day. Various tour groups also do day trips from SMA and you could hire a driver/ guide but going by ...

Greetings from San Luis Potosi Our stay here has been so enjoyable that we extended for a second day. The weather is perfect, the city is clean, our hotel is within a couple blocks of two main plazas, it was an easy decision to make this a two day stop. Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. People were coming to the churches all during the day, even past 9:00 PM to get blessed with the ashes. We attended the Carmel Church which is fantastic. There is ...