el crispito

Shawn likes to see the renowned sights when he visits a place. San Luis Potosí does not have many, but in our guide books, they did list several museums. Since the day before, we had merely walked around and looked at the city from its sidewalks, our Friday agenda included a stop at a museum. Since the Museo de Cultura Potosina was near the point where the taxi dropped us off downtown, we decided it would be the one we would visit. That would give us a chance to say we'd actually done something during our trip to San Luis Potosí.

We found it easily enough, as it was marked by a stone plaque on the wall of the building as well as a metal street sign with a big "M" out in front that they use here to mark museum locations (very similar to the ones in the United States with an "H" that direct one to a hospital). Yet we could not figure out how to get inside. We were contemplating whether or not the entrance was on another side of the building when a man came over and told us that the museum was no longer open.

Okay, it happens. We went to lunch at the Tokio Café, where oddly enough, they serve only Mexican food; after that, walked over to another museum, the Museo Mariano Jiménez, named for a local artist and featuring his works as well as some other exhibits about the history of the revolution in the area. We found it easily enough too, as it also had a big "M" sign in front. Yet it too was closed.

We walked back towards the center of town, and on the way saw one of the bilingual plaques the city has put up, and it directed us to the Museo de Artes Populares de San Luis Potosí. Given the placement of the sign in the plaza, it was unclear which of the buildings around it actually was the museum. Shawn went up and asked a guy standing in the doorway of one of the buildings which one it was. He didn't know, and he came over to look at the sign talking about it. After reading it, he told us that it must have been the one with the doorway in which he had been leaning, but that building had been converted into offices, and was no longer a museum.

We asked him what was up with San Luis Potosí and their getting rid of all their museums. He told us that they were not very popular, so they have mostly been converted to office space. He did point us toward one museum that he knew to still be open a few blocks away, the Museo Regional Potosino. We went there and spent about 20 minutes walking through the three rooms that remained open with exhibits. The other half of the building was closed off for construction.

We saw enough masks to last us a lifetime when we went to Zacatecas, so luckily we didn't have to deal with the heartbreak of not being able to go to San Luis Potosí's Museo Nacional de la Máscara, which we already knew was closed. Supposedly, it's only closed for renovation, but now I'm starting to wonder if that means renovation into office space.

Sometimes Mexico is really lame that way. You hear or read about some cool attraction in guide books or even tourism web sites promoting a city. Then when you get there and go to see it, it is all boarded up or perhaps even the building is gone. You ask many people around the site what happened, and it often takes a while before you find someone that remembers the place and knows that it closed down a long time ago. Still, nobody has bothered to take down the signs pointing to it or marking it, edit the listing on various web sites, nor get the word out to tourist bureaus and hotels that the place is no longer around.

I guess I shouldn't knock Mexico in particular for that. We had the same experience with a couple of museums in Buenos Aires. They were listed in all our guides, including online ones. Yet after spending the time and money to get across town to see them, we found one to be entirely gone, and another under renovation, slated to re-open...a year ago.