Achichipico

Achichipico, "where the water drips" in Nahuatl, sits at 1,934 metres on the northern slope above Yecapixtla, towards Popocatépetl. The 2020 census counted 2,534 people; in 1900 there were 775, and the village has grown steadily since 1921. Water is still the problem: INAH says a good part of it is bought and hauled in every day. The village is traditionally where the cream and cheese served with Yecapixtla's cecina come from, and people still leave for the municipal seat, the cities and the United States.

The history is deep. A block from the parish of San Sebastián lies the archaeological zone of Tlalolin, a Late and Terminal Preclassic settlement (about 200 BC to AD 150) whose adobe structure reaches some twenty metres, higher than those of Campana de Oro, Tonalán or Tlayacapan-Teocholes. In 2023 INAH rescued an offering of pots and an obsidian blade that turned up while a kindergarten wall was being dug. In 1571 the Augustinian prior Pedro de Medellín listed it as a subject town of Yecapixtla, with about 120 tributaries and a church of San Sebastián, and the 1580 Pintura de Acapistla draws it with a drip. In 1656 the clergy accused a leading mestiza of the village of using ololiuhqui, and around 1766 the parish split from Yecapixtla's curacy.

For a visitor the draw is the Barranca Grande and the Chichiminquiahua rock paintings, a panel with ritual scenes that includes the Atlcahualo festival. It lies a few kilometres from the village on paths through cornfields and is hard to find unaided: the sensible course is to ask a resident to go with you.