El Pedregal de San José

El Pedregal de San José sits among the rolling hills of the Tulancingo Valley, 2,199 metres above sea level, in the municipality of Santiago Tulantepec de Lugo Guerrero. The climate is semi-dry and temperate. The municipality has the San Lázaro river and the springs Los Cangrejos, La Zorrilla and Ventoquita, and its highest hills are El Campanario (2,500 m) and Cerro San José (2,720 m). Pine, fir, oak and cedar grow on the wetter slopes, and cacti turn up in the drier patches.

The numbers are what stand out. The 1970 census counted just 77 people; ten years later there were 911, by 1995 some 2,471, and in 2020 the total reached 3,472, or 8.78% of the whole municipality. It is now the third most populated locality in Santiago Tulantepec, after the municipal seat and the group of housing developments, and INEGI classes it as urban. That growth goes hand in hand with Tulancingo, the city that anchors the metropolitan area the municipality belongs to.

There are no monuments or set sights to tick off. You come for the everyday landscape of the Tulancingo Valley: open fields, low hills and wide skies toward sunset. For more to do, Tulancingo city and the rest of this 64 km² municipality are a few kilometres away.