a chicken in ever potosi

San Luis Potosi has pleasantly surprised me. Maybe even magically.

There is no logical reason I should be on a travel high this evening. Circumstances have certainly conspired against almost every word in that first sentence.

Our tour is in its final transition stage. After multi-days in Zacatecas and Real de Catorce, our overnight in San Luis Potosi is little more than the equivalent of a layover between flights.

Add that lowered expectation to a bladder-exercised four-hour bus trip this morning from Real de Catorce and a juvenile melt-down while checking into my room, and I am shocked -- shocked -- to find there is joyous gamboling going on here.

Somewhere between that paragraph and tonight, my world changed. And I am not quite certain why. But I do have some suspects.

San Luis Potosi has all of the historical elements of a Mexican highlands colonial city to pique my interest.

• It was founded in 1592 in support of previously-discovered silver and gold mines just outside of the town.
• It also had a cameo appearance in the War of Independence against Spain when all of the local insurgents were locked up in the Del Carmen Convent following Miguel Hidalgo's call on 16 September 1810 to overthrow their Spanish overlords. The insurgents were freed three months later.
  
  
  
• In 1863, San Luis Potosi served briefly as the capital of Mexico when President-on-the-run Benito Juarez narrowly escaped capture by Emperor Maximilian's French invasion force. From here, he fled to what is now known as Ciudad Juarez, then to El Paso, and finally to Chihuahua.
  
  
  
• During the presidency of Porfirio Diaz, San Luis Potosi, like most mining towns, was showered with infrastructure improvements, such as electricity, giving it an opportunity to diversify its economy with manufacturing.
• Even though it had benefited from Porfirio Diaz's beneficence, San Luis Potosi was where the Mexican Revolution began. In a way. Francisco Madero and several other prominent northerners met in an apartment on a street now named for Madero and drafted the Plan of San Luis Potosi that would provide the intellectual basis for the Revolution.
  
  
  

All of that would have been enough to seduce me into liking the city. I am a sucker for a good historical tale. And San Luis Potosi has plenty. But the city is a lot more than that -- as I discovered this afternoon and evening.

It is hard to imagine that the metropolitan area houses over a million people. NAFTA and the city's location make it a prime industrial site, just as its location made it a perfect support city for mining.  BMW and Chevrolet have plants here.

San Luis Potosi is the type of city my very modern Mexico City friend Maria touts as her vision of what Mexico will be -- with a nod to its past, but its eyes on the future.

This afternoon and evening, I strolled through the central part of the city. Most UNESCO cities I have encountered have a frozen-in-amber feel to them. That is one of the natural results of ceding local sovereignty to UNESCO's restrictions.

I suspect the fact that the UNESCO-protected centro area is so small in relation to the giant modern city that surrounds it that the rest of the city gives the centro area a feeling that real people with real jobs live there.

And, in San Luis Potosi, those real people are of all ages. But a large portion are young.

Certainly, the city has churches. Beautiful churches. Some are regarded as the best in Mexico.

And steeples.

And a style of textured brick architecture that always fascinates me, but I can never recall its name.

There is also tamed nature. Like the rows of jacaranda trees that, of course, cannot compete with our primaveras on the Pacific coast. Everyone knows that.
At least, both are native Mexicans.

San Luis Potosi has a religious tradition that is not native. It is importred directly from Seville. The Procession of Silence.

On each Good Friday, associations proceed from the El Carmen church and walk in silence through the city recreating the passion of Jesus' crucifixion. Some of them are known as Nazarenos and wear hoods that have an unnerving effect on Americans.

The hoods have nothing to do with the KKK. They are worn by penitents seeking remission from sins. The hoods are known as capriotes.

But all of that falls into the history bucket. For me, it was just more chilies in my sopa.

I believe what entranced me about the city was its people. Like this bride and her bridesmaids who look as if they are pulling a Cinderella, but who are only preparing for some pre-wedding photographs. I still like the runaway court scenario.

And this mob of graduates primping in front of the municipal theater prior to what will undoubtedly be a major milestone in their careers.

Where there are students, there are bookstores. Where I live, this sight is about as exotic as seeing Queen Elizabeth performing "Swan Lake."

This would not be Mexico if there were no music. And when the sun sets here music is everywhere. And from all variety of musicians and instruments.

The first group I encountered was made up of these five young men. They were singing something in a rock-jazz fusion. It sounded vaguely familiar. Then I caught two bars. It was "Busame Mucho."

Now, "Besame Mucho" is one of the three songs that will cause me to immediately leave when it is performed. (The other two are "Girl from Ipanema" and "Guantanamera.") That is one reason I do not hang out in beach bars.

The fact that these musicians were creative enough to turn the tune into something I would stop and listen to, put me in a great mood, and made them a bit bill-richer for their effort.

I walked away humming. And enjoyed each musician I ran across. Including this pianist who had set up shop on a park bench and appeared to be playing for no one in particular other than for his own enjoyment. And mine. I thanked him appropriately for adding more joy to my evening.

The highlight of my evening was yet to come.

In the main plaza, a DJ had set up speakers and was playing dance music. Amazingly, not at Mexican volume. It was loud enough to be heard, but not distorted.

I suppose one reason for the music was to entertain the people who had gathered in the plaza. But its primary purpose was for dancing. And dance they did.

At least, the older couples in the crowd did. None were Dancing with Stars material, and that was to their credit. They were not showing off. They were there to have a good time with their neighbors.

And that is exactly what it felt like. Even though we were right in the middle of Mexico's seventh-largest cities, it felt as if we were attending a village fiesta. Or, in my cultural terms, the state fair.

I could not resist asking a woman of a certain age if she would like to share a few steps with me. She did not hesitate to accept. And it was the best two minutes of my day.

I internally cringe when I hear someone describe a place as "magical." It is one of those words that is so nebulous as to have almost no definition.

But something happened today. I do not know if it was a moment of magic. Nothing more than the  riffing "Busame Mucho." But I felt as if I was spending an evening with my cousins.

And it made me so happy that I stood there watching the dancers, and suddenly thought: this is plenty of magic for me right now.