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San Luis Potosí is a modern, industrial state that borders Mexico's central and northern regions. With a rich pre-Columbian past and colonial legacy, the state is embracing the coming century. Take a look at the government's millennial vision: (www.slp.gob.mx/milenio/milenio.htm)
The state's physical terrain varies greatly - from humid tropics in the eastern Huasteca region to the aridity of the Chihuahuan desert in the west - and internet resources parallel this grand diversity. While there is a great deal of information about the state on the Web, most of the quality resources are in Spanish. So get out your map (and dictionary if necessary) and prepare for a virtual tour of San Luis Potosí.
www.angelfire.com/ok/Sanluis/index.html
**** (out of 5*)
Created on the free Angelfire.com website, this home-grown, Spanish-language site offers a number of valuable resources, including a general history, a state map (www.angelfire.com/ok/Sanluis/slpmap.html), a review of important haciendas (www.angelfire.com/ok/altiplano/haciendas.html), and an interactive guestbook (http://saturn.guestworld.tripod.lycos.com/wgb/wgbview.dbm?owner=sanluis).
It's easy to see the reason why the content-rich site won a "Page of the Day" award from Mexico's Internet Society (www.internet.com.mx/nuevo/index.shtml).
Contact email: sanluis@angelfire.com
One of the state's premier newspapers, Pulso has its own website with state and local news - all in Spanish. The site is slow-loading, but if you're looking for local reporting or want to dive into the archives, then this is the place: (www.pulsoslp.com.mx/Archivo.asp).
Pulso is a must-visit site. My only reservation is that it is poorly cross-linked, but there is definite potential here for a five-star rating.
Contact email: pulso@pulsoslp.com.mx
Sure, this website promotes the private university, but it goes one step further and provides good information about the state (www.slp.itesm.mx/sprincip/estado/slp.htm) and distinctive regions, such as the Huasteca Potosina (www.slp.itesm.mx/sprincip/extrac/huasteca/hexat2.htm).
Kudos to Tec! It will be interesting to see if the site can combine distance education and offer courses about the region to students around the world.
Contact email: w-master@www.slp.itesm.mx
www.slp.gob.mx/
***
Although slow-loading and displaying some out-of-date contacts, this site is nonetheless one of the better government pages in Mexico. Credit is due the administration for placing on-line some eclectic and valuable information, including their first state address (www.slp.gob.mx/informe/informe.htm) and their development plan (www.slp.gob.mx/plan/plan.htm).
Contact email: proyecto@orb.org.mx
http://cityguide-att.lycos.com/assist/cityguide/articles/384_t.html
**
This simple guide provides a short background on San Luis Potosí and numerous web links to English and Spanish-language documents about Real de Catorce and other travel destinations. The biggest problem here is the number of dead links to other sites.
State profile pages from Infosel (http://slp.infosel.com.mx/),
Mexico On-line (www.mexicool.com/states/northeas/sanluis.html),
Weather Underground's current forecast (www.wunderground.com/global/stations/76539.html),
And if you're curious about the Xilitla, a monument to surrealism in the jungle, be sure to check out www.junglegossip.com.
This article originally appeared in Business Mexico
magazine.
For
subscription information,
visit their website at
http://www.amcham.com.mx
or e-mail
busmex@amcham.com.mx
Ron Mader (ron@planeta.com) is a journalist
and author of Mexico:
Adventures in Nature.
He also hosts Planeta.com (http://www.planeta.com) which in
1999 was awarded the "Lente de Plata" award from The Tourism
Secretariat (Sectur) for best Mexico-related website.
