Cantinela

Cantinela spreads across plain and low hills at 1,742 metres, about 3 km from Ixmiquilpan, the municipal seat. The climate is semi-dry and temperate, and water in the area runs toward the Tula River. It is everyday Mezquital Valley: according to Wikipedia, the municipality grows mostly irrigated vegetables and raises sheep, goats and cattle.

Its population has grown steadily. INEGI counted 453 people in 1980, 698 in 1990, 890 in 2000 and a dip to 673 in 2005; by 2010 there were 1,136 and in 2020, 1,531: 722 men and 809 women, 1.55% of the whole municipality. In four decades the locality grew more than threefold.

It does not advertise itself as a destination, but it sits usefully on the map. The Ixmiquilpan–Cantinela road is the one Parque EcoAlberto gives as its access, 8.5 km from town, and the Hñähñu village of El Alberto lies another 4 or 5 km or so south. Anyone passing with time can pair it with what Ixmiquilpan holds downtown: the Augustinian ex-convent of San Miguel Arcángel, with murals painted around 1572 by Indigenous artists, the Carmen chapel, finished in 1772, and the Museo de la Cultura Hñähñu.