Acueducto El Saucillo

El Saucillo is the most striking piece of colonial engineering around Huichapan: a stone aqueduct that also served as a bridge, thrown across a deep ravine called Arroyo Hondo southwest of town. It has 14 arches, runs about 155 meters end to end, and stands roughly 44 meters high at its tallest point, which makes it one of the tallest colonial aqueducts in Mexico.

It was built between 1732 and 1738 for Captain Manuel González Ponce de León, the landowner who also paid for much of Huichapan's old center. The ravine was a constant problem: mules carrying grain slipped and fell on the way down, and the lands below lacked water. The arcade solved both, carrying a water channel along the top while giving people and animals a level crossing. Local tradition says so many workers died moving the heavy stone that the gorge got the nickname Cañón del Diablo. A cross still marks the center of the span.

Today the aqueduct sits inside an ecotourism park, so you can walk along the old channel, look down into the ravine, and, if you like, fly under the arches on a zip line.