San Luis Soyatlán

San Luis Soyatlán, usually just called San Luis, is the largest town in the municipality of Tuxcueca and sits on the south shore of Lake Chapala, looking across the water to Ajijic and the rest of the north shore. More than half the municipality's people live here, and it generates most of its income. Federal Highway 15, known in town as Avenida Álvaro Obregón, runs right through it, lined with small eateries, ice-cream shops, fruit stands, pharmacies and stores. The town is long and narrow, squeezed between the lake and the hills.

The name combines the patron saint, Saint Louis of Toulouse, with a Nahuatl word meaning "place of the soyate", the palm fibre used to weave mats and hats. The area was inhabited before the Spanish arrived, and shortly before the Conquest the Purépecha took it over to control the salt flats of Zacoalco and Sayula, which led to what is known as the Saltpetre War. San Luis belonged to Jocotepec until 1 October 1888, when it was transferred to Tuxcueca, which had become a municipality two years earlier.

The church of San Luis Obispo began as an adobe chapel built by Franciscans in 1564 and was completed on 22 December 1885, still without the bell tower that is now the town's landmark. Across the highway from it is the main plaza, with the arcaded municipal delegation building and the market beside it. Along the lake runs the Edén park and malecón, more than 40,000 m² of piers, grills, picnic tables, sports courts and palms; at weekends it fills with families, music and food stalls.

In the hills behind town there is a lookout with a large metal cross, and a waterfall of more than 30 metres that flows in the rainy season. Cerro García, nearly 2,600 metres high, is the tallest peak on the lakeshore, and its summit takes in the whole lake. The patron-saint fiesta runs from 11 to 19 August, with guilds, processions, fireworks towers and evening serenades in the plaza; one day belongs to the townspeople who come back from the United States, and it includes a football match between the visiting "hamburgers" and the local "tilapias".