hi everyone i bet you thought when i came back to my favorite state in mexico that i would do
a nice easy relaxing video come on this is me you're talking about hola amigos and welcome back
to mexico the state of san luis potosi is a special place we're back here once again for
part seven of my 10 part 2020 mexico series in the past i've eaten enchiladas potasinas and huastecas
plus the amazing costanzo chocolates visited cathedrals parks and cemeteries and in general
marveled at a beautiful destination seemingly undiscovered by foreigners but what's so great
about san luis estate is the variety i visited xilitla and the bizarre edward james garden
the tiny cedral and the mind-blowing and much-loved real de catorce a distant jewel
far away in the cactus-filled desert telling the story of the mining history in san luis but today
we're in a place which could steal catorce's crown an active mining town at risk from open
pit mining explosions with another pueblo mexico and pueblo fantasma there's a reason why san luis
is my number one state in mexico today once again you're gonna find out why I'm go for a closer look
now if you're like me and you really appreciate visiting off the beaten track
locations in mexico like this this video might be of interest to you
i'm in cerro de san pedro which is a very small pueblito off to the northeast
of san luis potosi city itself you might notice i'm saying cerro not cerro despite being in and
out of mexico for almost three years now i still struggle with the double r so i'm gonna say sedo
or hill hill of san pedro now as i'm sure you'll be aware getting to places like this
can be a bit of a nightmare it certainly was for me today so i'm not going to talk about
it in the video i'm going to put that down in the description below hopefully that might help
hello, hola!
so i'm by myself up a slightly windy mirador a viewpoint a viewpoint over an open pit mine
more on that in a second but let's take a look at it
look at that and cerro di san pedro as with much of this region san luis potosi and central mexico
it has a great history with mining particularly around precious metals like gold and silver things
like that we've all seen in my videos those places in like taxco where you go to all these jewelry
shops silver shops it's awesome and the thing about this place is that i'm kind of comparing
it to real de catorce where i went last year you can check that video out up above it kind of
feels like the electric on steroids because areas like this as i said they're not kind of popular
with international tourists except me apparently there's a book down there when you come up to this
viewpoint where you have to put where you're from and i was the only one that wasn't from mexico
everyone was from slp you know there was only one person from the state of mexico so clearly
it's someone that's very popular with domestic tourists but not so much with um international
and what i thought about cortose was that it's much more well-known in a way so this kind of has
a very different feel which i can't really put my finger on yet so the difference here with an open
pit mine i believe originally the mining was done here the traditional way underground you know dark
horrible conditions with the chisel and that you know chiseling the metal out of the rock but in
recent times open pit mines have become prominent here i believe these mines are actually owned by a
canadian company now i'm not sure that's run by a mexican subsidiary um and i've seen videos of like
explosions where they actually you know detonate dynamite explosives to extract the metals from the
rock now i don't know much about mining is that an explosion in the background anyway in fact i
know nothing at all but it's quite interesting how there's these kind of like ridges battered
out of the the rock i guess that's where workers would walk or something to to set the explosives i
don't know and you can quite clearly see in some areas where there have been explosions there's
it's almost like there's been a landslide or something um the there are these sheer rock faces
oh there's copyrighted music everywhere yeah this place was originally named i think san pedro de
potosi even um after the place in bolivia called potosi where i've been so clearly there's uh that
that word is about you know the the value that you get from the earth in terms of mining and precious
metals things like that i believe it was named by a priest or a father who went to a nearby pueblo
i can't remember the name and found that people used gold in like artwork and things like that
i don't know if that's true but he you know asked the locals where did you get this gold this like
powder or whatever they told him this area hence cerro di san pedro came into existence right sorry
about the wind turn the subtitles on if necessary i was gonna have some food in the central area
lots of nice little restaurants with nice local food but i decided not to for two reasons number
one we've had a lot of food in videos lately so it's time to take a break and number two as i said
there's copyright music really loud so youtube would demonetize this video yes i don't do this
for fun you know um but there is something even more spectacular to see which is in front of me
so as you come out of the town and actually when i was walking here i noticed a lot of these old
mines like littered around just in absolute ruin so we're going to explore some of them
adventure david is back this is where you really get like a pueblo fantasma
feel similar to real de catorce pueblo fantasma ghost town and it really does feel like walking
around real de catorce again with the cactuses everywhere cacti whichever one you want to say
and these old dilapidated brick buildings all over the place and i'm not sure if these were like
parts of mines some of them actually there's signage saying they were mined
but you know were these also sort of dwellings for people who worked at the mines i don't know um
i guess obviously when it was the old style of mining this is cool this is sort of thing i love
adventure exploring the unknown and like i said before you know i'm really kind of
appreciative and happy that i'm i've got the opportunity to come here because
it's not really somewhere that's visited frequently and uh yeah there's just so much
to explore and have an adventure and clamber over rocks like your indiana jones or something and it
and also it's a part of mexican history that is so important and coming to somewhere like this is um
is essential in understanding that i think there's even buildings like this like almost buried into
the rock perhaps the vegetation's growing over the top i can't get up there because there's barbed
wire i'll probably climb over it but it doesn't like there's much in there anyway let's move on
it's quite difficult to get through because it's quite dense and i've got to be careful
that i don't do what i did in burnout i almost get bitten by a snake but also put my hand in
a cactus took about a week to get the tiny spiny bits out here's a good close-up i never realized
that the branches of the cactus trees or whatever actually had them on as well like thorns in a way
yeah so you have to be careful that you don't you know do that if you're trying to clamber up
something and want something to grab hold of believe me i've made that mistake before now
clearly i'm not a botanist or a cactactologist i don't think that's a real thing um but it's
interesting not all the different types of tactile that you find you know they're that's ones that
you know your mum has in a pot at home but here we are in real life this is pueblo fantasmic
i just made up a new word obviously um fantasma phantasm in english was this like some kind of
industrial buildings it's got a chimney and a staircase going up there we can go inside
feels like i'm in serbia again exploring abandoned buildings
except this time i think there's less likelihood of heroin addicts this is really interesting i'm
just thinking is was this like a mine shaft going down i'm not sure you know with the you know the
truck thingies the carts that come out with the rock and the gold and that it looks like
it kind of there's a decline i don't know right there are some rocks that i can climb on so
down for a closer look urbex exploring [ __ ] not really urbex because it's not urban
okay there isn't a decline but i don't really know what this would have been used for
who knows
all right let's get out of here right right by the san pedro sign i think i can get up that
way okay let's get this tree out the way oh there's dead cactus all over the floor
lovely oh [ __ ] part of my language all right this tree is i think it's actually attached to
the ground it's just a dead collapse bit oh [ __ ] look at that like ridge thing up there
wowzers hang on i'm stuck on a cactus oh god ah here we go so how cool is this
we have i'm assuming an entry to a mine obviously it's going to be locked yes
yeah i don't know if you can see in there yeah you can
it's like a sort of entry tunnel bit i guess and there's just a hole in the back
is that where they would have gone down into the mines i assume they would
listen to that echo brilliant all right we're heading up the steps you can see my shadow
it's obviously getting a bit later in the day now so we've got lovely golden hour sunshine
lighting up these old mining buildings
i think we can go up there as well as another building but i think we're going to carry on
just take a moment to appreciate the
silence
stunning look at the color of the rock behind me amazing and before we in this video i wanted to
compare this kind of to an old trip pre youtube and for those of you that are from the states
you'll know what i'm talking about probably in 2005 i was in death valley in arizona right
not nevada arizona um one of the hottest places on earth and there's a ghost town there
called rhyolite and if i remember correctly i only remembered about this this morning when
i was walking here the does that have a history of mining as well i can't remember but it kind
of has the same feel you know the absolute silence and these just these brick buildings just sitting
in the middle of nowhere unloved and forgotten about um yeah it's just beautiful love this place
this is what i mean about death valley i'm sure i walked through places like this where
you can see the sort of the layers of rock there very tall and sheer as i said before
you know cactuses to the left and more rocky outcrops to the right in the distance you know
you've got these old buildings which is just like rylai i literally feel like i'm there right now
look at it this is becoming an epic mexico video i think
so i think you've got the gist of the level of exploration that you can do in cerro de san pedro
when you come out of the town so you know what happened to me earlier
which we'll see in the description about me having to walk a lot of the way here
if i hadn't done that i probably wouldn't have noticed that all of this was around so sometimes
things like that when they happen it's it's a good thing if you remember the yeah the real de
catorce video i went to like a ledge and i said this is where i want my ashes scattered this is
a backup if you can't get to that ledge in real de catorce come to cerro de san pedro and this is my
resting place this building this room i'm done right so it's now the next day clearly because
i'm wearing different clothes yes i do change my clothes and i must say the walk back from
san pedro to los gomes yes i walked it took about two and a half hours through
dingy farm yards pitch black oncoming traffic using my torch flashlight on my phone to light the
way was eventful to say the least but i must say in two and a half hours walking i probably learned
more about rural mexican life than i have in two and a half years of being in and out of mexico
so it was a wonderful halloween adventure yes it was halloween pueblo fantasma fantasma ghost
anyway the thing about san pedro i want to say is that um obviously because of the destruction going
on because of the open pit mining i'm probably being unrealistic because i'm sure that it will
be protected but who knows who knows what will happen in the future whether that tiny pueblito a
magical place will be still be there will it be protected i don't know so if you are in mexico
absolutely consider a day out like that it was difficult it was tough but it was good fun i
really enjoyed myself and we're now in a different location okay i will be back in san luis for the
last video of this series today is dia di muertos it's november the first is anything happening
i guess we're gonna find out we're in one of my golden locations welcome back to zacatecas
and the last thing i'll say is isn't it great to watch a travel video in 2020
without a single mention of Covid-19. oh crap anyway i'll see you next time catch you later
no one has been complaining about you can't go to a parade or have a offender on the street you know
it's just one of those things about mexico that i feel like the rest of the world could learn
from