Molango

Molango sits at about 1,580 meters in the Sierra Alta of Hidalgo, a green, rainy region of steep mountains north of the Metztitlán canyon. Its name is usually explained as "place of Mola," a deity worshipped here before the Spanish arrived. According to the chronicles, the Augustinian friar Antonio de Roa and his companions destroyed the temple and its image, and the friars founded a mission here around 1538, one of the oldest in the region.

The convent, dedicated to Our Lady of Loreto, was built in the 1540s on a raised, leveled platform surrounded by a wall. You climb to it by a fan-shaped stairway, and the entrance arch is carved with angels in a style that suggests indigenous hands. Inside, look for the wooden roof, a 16th-century pulpit carved in stone and a Gothic rose window over the entrance. For two centuries Molango was a priorate administering dozens of villages, until the parish was secularized in 1751.

Today Molango is also a mining town, known for its large manganese deposits. Six kilometers away is the Laguna de Atezca, a forest lake that makes the long drive into the sierra worthwhile.