San Bartolo Morelos

San Bartolo Morelos is the seat of Morelos municipality in the northwest of the State of Mexico; it has nothing to do with the state of Morelos. It sits at 2,729 m, and INEGI counted 1,981 residents here in 2020. It began as an Otomí settlement, and its older Nahuatl name comes from nochtli, prickly pear: "where tunas are plentiful". In 1572 it was granted 600 varas measured from the church toward the four compass points; in colonial times it was San Bartolomé de las Tunas, and on 8 October 1874 it was made a municipality as San Bartolomé de Morelos. The present name came after the Revolution.

A visit here is slow and simple. The road climbs into town past tiled-roof houses with wooden gates, and cobbled streets lead to the plaza with the church, the arch that frames it, the atrial cross, a few small portales and the Palacio Municipal. Behind town rises Cerro de La Bufa, covered in pine, with the lookouts La Peñuela and El Mirador. The thing you see from far off is the monumental statue of José María Morelos y Pavón on top of Cerro Las Peñitas.

Farming and cattle are the main livelihoods, and in the Otomí areas people still make pottery, tools and household ware, and woollen weaving. The municipal monograph suggests rounding out the day at the El Tigre dam, Boxheguí park and the Las Chichipicas spring, or at the old hacienda houses of Santa Cruz and La Epifanía and the colonial church of San Gregorio Macapexco.