San Andrés Totoltepec

The name means "hill of birds", from the Nahuatl totolli (bird) and tepetl (hill). San Andrés Totoltepec is one of the eleven original villages of Tlalpan, spread over ridges, ravines and farmed terraces at the foot of the Ajusco range, with the extinct Xitle, Xiquitontli and Cuauhzontle volcanoes on its western edge. It began as a Tepanec settlement, probably in 1345, and in 1560 its people were granted title to the land they farmed, which they have held, with some interruptions, ever since. The main entrance is at kilometre 22.5 of the old federal road to Cuernavaca.

The church of San Andrés Apóstol was built between 1770 and 1773. Its 18th-century pink stone front was later patched with cement, and in 1968 the nave was lengthened by three bays and the atrium paved. Inside is a single nave with a well-kept 18th-century altarpiece holding paintings of the Baptism of Christ and the Virgin of Guadalupe, a carved wooden Saint Andrew in the niche above the tabernacle, a painted San Isidro Labrador of the same period and a Christ made from corn-stalk paste.

In 1973 part of the village land was expropriated for the Heroico Colegio Militar, and the deal that followed gave San Andrés its market, about fifty stalls, which marks its anniversary every 28 August with a street party. The tianguis sets up on Thursdays. There are two feasts a year: the small one at Corpus Christi and the big one for Saint Andrew on 30 November, about twelve days of brass bands, rockets, a fireworks tower, chinelo, arriero and moros dancers in the atrium, turkey in mole with red rice, and bean tamales. The bike path on the old Cuernavaca railway runs right through the village, a usual stop for riders heading up to Parres. Above it lie the Ajusco and Tlalpan's other villages.