Huehuetán

Huehuetán sits where the Sierra Madre de Chiapas drops onto the Pacific coastal plain, about 50 metres above sea level. It is the seat of a Soconusco municipality of 36,333 people (2020); the town itself had 8,334, and Huehuetán Estación, the settlement that grew up in 1907 around the Pan-American Railway stop, had another 6,962 and has all but merged with it. The Nahuatl name means place where the old ones abound.

Local tradition calls it the oldest town in the Soconusco and credits its founding to the leader Balum Votán. What is documented is that in 1540 the Spanish made it capital of the province of Soconusco, a role it held until 1700, when economic decline sent the authorities to Escuintla. They came back in 1792, this time as the seat of a subdelegation, after a waterspout wrecked Escuintla, and stayed until 23 May 1794, when power moved to Tapachula for good. In 1800 a flood of the Huehuetán river half destroyed the town, and it only revived after the 1882 border treaty with Guatemala.

The main survivor of that past is the church of San Pedro, built in 1550 beside an ixquixóchitl tree said to have been planted by the Aztecs; it holds archaeological pieces left by the Indigenous people who lived here. The big feasts are those of the Señor de Esquipulas, the Virgen de la Candelaria and San Pedro. Local cooking runs to chipilín tamales, pork tamales and armado, and the municipality's crafts include fireworks, bone carving and wool and cotton weaving. Expect humid heat year-round, a mean of about 28 °C, with heavy summer rain.