April 20-21, San Luis Potosi' to Pachuca Desoto - 276 Miles

and Pachuca to Xalapa - 260 Miles

Starting out from San Luis Potosi', we thought our route south would be a series of mountain ranges, but it turned out that the route was through an series of very long, wide, dry valleys running north-south.  These valleys ran between the first and second mountain ranges from the Gulf of Mexico.

We found that the only road going that way was a "Cuota", the Mexican common name for a Toll Way.  We try to stay off the Cuotas, first because they are very expensive, but mainly because we want to get the flavor of the Mexican towns and country side.  Many times the "old road" runs roughly parallel to the Cuota and is called the "Libre", for "free" road.  So we take the Libre, along with lots of other local folks, and along with many, many trucks.  We can't figure out where all of the trucks are going.

When we got onto the Libre today, we took every bend and every uphill or downhill there was.  Going South in Mexico the villages get closer and closer together so that one cannot make very many miles.  However, we had planned on this and the local villages make up for the slow roads.

Pachuca de Soto has been a mining town for more than a hundred years, and has some interesting sights and tales to tell.  For one, Cornish miners came in and of course brought some of their foods and traditions.  One thing that is fascinating is that they still serve "Pastes" (in English "Pasties"), and this is the only place in Mexico that has that traditional foods.  Folks in the northern states of the US have "Pasties" for the same reasons.

A second thing is the large "Mexico 100-year Independence" monument on the plaza.  It was funded by local mining companies, and features a bell tower manufactured in England, by the same company that made "Big Ben", while having French inspired statues favored by Mexican president Porfirio Diaz.  Deane and Jim were the tourists.

From Pachuca de Soto to Xalapa, we took a route that was planned to include a couple of "shortcuts" which I knew would take a lot of time, but we thought would include interesting views of various villages.

It turned out that both were true.  The villages, crops, different zones of dry to very lush vegetation, and different scenes were all quite interesting.  And the time it took was quite long.  We started out about 8 AM and ended about 7 PM for a total of only 260 miles!  However, included were kind of easy going stops, a marvelous lunch at a small town restaurant, and a tour of the interesting town of Tlaxcala.

Most interesting were the terraced hills to support the growing of the Maguey plant, which produces the Mescal that is the basic liquor in Tequila.

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