San Vicente Tancuayalab

San Vicente Tancuayalab lies at the far eastern edge of San Luis Potosí, on the flat Gulf coastal plain about 40 metres above sea level, close to the Moctezuma River and the Veracruz state line. The town has some 6,700 residents; across the municipality about a quarter of adults speak an Indigenous language, nearly all of them Teenek (Huastec), and the Indigenous community runs its own council of elders alongside the town hall.

In Teenek, Tancuayalab means place of the staff of office, read as the seat of a ceremonial centre or of a high priest. Franciscan friars founded the first village in the 16th century as San Francisco Tancuayalab, but it was short of water, so in 1767 its people moved to the banks of the Moctezuma, where the town stands now. The old site survives as the village of San Francisco Cuayalab, with its church and Huastec ruins. Many unexcavated pre-Hispanic mounds dot the area, some of them dug up by treasure hunters. Hernán Cortés marched through late in 1521 on his way to Tamuín and the Pánuco.

The land grows sugar cane, oranges, maize and chile, and raises cattle. The big fiesta is on 4 October, the feast of St Francis of Assisi, with Huastec son music; families set up Day of the Dead altars on 1 and 2 November, and the Virgin of Guadalupe is honoured in December. Look for zacahuil (a giant pit-baked tamal), bocoles, fresh requesón and Huastec enchiladas, with jobo or tamarind water.