Why this ride
Dense vegetation, changing elevation and a high scenic return per kilometre. It also links naturally to Sierra Gorda and Huasteca landscapes.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Huasteca Potosina Loop
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 177 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 3 h 05
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Access context
Verify security, road condition, daylight-only routing and local advisories. Specific flag: rain; security review.
Seasonal context
Nov-Apr
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Ciudad Valles
Ciudad Valles is the commercial capital of the Huasteca Potosina, the lush, tropical eastern part of San Luis Potosí where the dry highlands of central Mexico fall toward the Gulf coast. It is a hot, busy city of over a hundred thousand people on the Río Valles, with sugar cane, citrus and cattle country around it, and a marked change in climate and culture from the desert plateau a few hours west. The air is humid and the vegetation thick, with palms and banana plants.
Read the complete Ciudad Valles write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Ciudad Valles sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Xilitla.
2. Xilitla
Concrete flowers, stairways leading nowhere and gothic arches dripping with ferns: Las Pozas, just outside Xilitla, is one of the strangest places in Mexico. It was built by Edward James, an eccentric English poet and patron of the surrealists, who came to this jungle-covered mountainside in the 1940s, fell in love with it and spent decades building a dreamlike garden of concrete sculptures among the waterfalls and pools of a mountain stream. Today it is open to visitors, and wandering through it, half lost in the vegetation, is unforgettable.
Read the complete Xilitla write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Xilitla comes up 45 km in. Next is Aquismón.
3. Aquismón
At dawn above Aquismón, thousands of birds spiral up out of a vast hole in the ground. The Sótano de las Golondrinas, the Cave of Swallows, is a pit more than three hundred metres deep, one of the deepest open shafts in the world, and every morning swarms of swifts and parakeets rise from it in widening circles before flying off to feed. In the evening they return, diving straight down into the darkness like falling stones. It is one of the great natural spectacles of Mexico, and it happens just a short ride from this small Huasteca town.
Read the complete Aquismón write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
91 km in you reach Aquismón. Next is Ciudad Valles.
4. Ciudad Valles
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ciudad Valles write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Ciudad Valles, late in the day.