The first Pueblo Magico we visited was Santiago in the state of Nuevo Leon. The village was founded by Diego Rodríguez de Montemayor in 1645 and bears the same name as its sister village Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
While Santiago de Compostela is world famous as the end of many pilgrimage routes, Santiago in Mexico worked hard to show its guests that it has a rich tradition aswell.
The centre square is beautiful and clean. Many benches to rest on and a lots of trees. Little traffic is passing by. On the square is free and strong wifi.
There are many bright colored buildings on the square. Most of them are nice little restaurants where you can taste the rich flavors of Mexico.
In the goevernment building you will find a small free history museum and the tourist information point. But the main attraction is the huge cathedral on the square. A big, half round, staircase will bring you to the entrance of this almost 300 years old cathedral which has his doors open for visitors during day time.
The little streets around the main square show lots of different, but always colorful houses and shops. Again, little traffic passing trough. There was not a single moment I felt unsafe walking through the little streets. The people passing by, always look a bit strange to a Dutch family of 5, but a simple “Hola” will get a friendly greeting in return.
Santiago certainly is worth visiting!
Presa La Boca
Santiago and its neighboring villages share a big, man made, water reservoir (Presa). This lake is not used to create electricity like most reservoirs, but for drinking water. The story about its creation is as exciting as it is sad.
The lake was created by building a dam between two mountains. The river running through the valley would create the lake by filling up the valley between the mountains. But there was a village in that valley aswell. The houses were not demolished. So deep on the bottom of the lake, a complete village should still be there. As a scuba diver, this interested me greatly, but unfortunately no local business saw the potential of this yet, and no option to explore the underwater village is given…..yet….
But there is a sad side to all this aswell.
When the dam was finished and closed, not everyone in the village was already gone. The story is that after a large thunderstorm with lots of rain in the region, the river filled the valley faster than expected and many families needed to find shelter on their roofs.
They were picked up by helicopters, having to leave everything behind….
La Cola De Caballo
In the mountains right behind Santiago a spectacular water fall can be found. Its named “La Cola De Caballo” translated to the Horse Tail. Obviously it didn’t get this name for nothing. The water from this waterfall doesn’t fall down as one big waterfall, but in multiple white strings that start small and end wide 20 meters lower.
The waterfall truly looks like a horse tail and is certainly worth visiting.
Visiting isn’t free, but the small admittance assures us that the area around the waterfall is clean and well maintained. Some tourist shops are on the premises, but no pushy sales people. When upi bring your own BBQ stuff, picnic tables and BBQ´s are in the front of the park.
Our Personal Experience
Santiago is our first Pueblo Magico stop. Finding an overnight parking place for our RV here, we knew in advance, wouldn’t be easy. There are no real campsites are in the area.
Are plan was, as always, to go to the city center and connect with people. If you want to know how we arrange our overnight stays, I advise you to read the post about boondocking in Mexico.
Our first stop was the cathedral. Inside we met Teresa, wife of Jorge a well know architect and constructor in Santiago. Teresa is very socially active in the community and agreed set some meetings up with people from the tourist information office. Walking there she decided to lend a hand herself and take us to her house where we could park our RV within the safety of her walled garden.
This was a beautiful place to stay, with our own toilet block, electricity and water hookup.
Teresa and her husband introduced us to her whole family and they did their best to show us around in Santiago, La Boca en Cola De Caballo the next few days.
We were invited in their houses and were introduced to their delicious Mexican home cooking. They were another example of the hospitable Mexican way of life as we have been seeing along our our route in Mexico so many time before.
Conclusion
The beauty of the little town center, the hospitable people who live there, the good food and the spectacular nature will have us come back to Santiago for sure.