Yahualica

Yahualica comes from Nahuatl ayahuitl, "fog", and calli, "house": the house of fog. The municipal development plan offers a second reading, "in the round place" or "the hill surrounded by water", and claims it was the first settlement founded in what is now Hidalgo before the conquest. What the same document records more firmly is its military role: because of its broken terrain the town served as a stronghold for the lord of Metztitlán against the Huastecs, and Augustinian friars later converted it. In the War of Independence its people sided with the insurgents of the priest Bartolomé Vélez Escalante.

The town is the municipal seat and had 1,389 residents in 2020, at roughly 680 metres in the Carso Huasteco ranges. The climate is warm and humid with rain all year, about 1,900 mm and an average of 20 °C according to the municipality. The native vegetation is medium forest, with squirrels, rabbits and deer among the fauna. Four in five people in the municipality speak an indigenous language, mostly Huasteca Nahuatl.

The fields around Yahualica yield oranges, coffee and palmilla, and the municipal plan lists pottery among its crafts. Anyone after a large market goes to Atlapexco or Huejutla de Reyes, since local trade is small and mostly hawked by farmers themselves. The same document admits that rural roads are in poor shape and that public transport is patchy on several routes, which is worth keeping in mind when planning a visit.