Chimalacatlán

Locals call it Chímala, and the Nahuatl name is read as "place of reed shields". The village sits at about 1,076 m in the Sierra de Huautla, in the south of Tlaquiltenango municipality, and the 2020 census counted 324 people, down from 401 in 2000 (384 in 2005, 364 in 2010). About 104 homes are occupied, nearly all with electricity and piped water, and there is a preschool, a primary school and a middle school. Most residents are Catholic (244), with 52 Protestants.

Most visitors come for what lies above it. The Chimalacatlán ruins on top of Cerro del Venado are about 2 km uphill and have a page of their own; the village is the starting point and the place to ask for a guide. In 2001 residents opened a community museum, with INAH support, holding fossils, tools, figurines and obsidian points collected over decades. One recent guide calls it modest, and the federal cultural information system lists it as temporarily closed, so ask before counting on it.

About 2 km from the ruins is the Cueva Encantada, which archaeologist Florencia Müller explored in the 1940s: it yielded Pleistocene fossils (gomphotheres and ground sloths) and human tools more than 10,000 years old, according to that guide. Local tradition speaks of a female guardian, "la dueña", who watches over the hill.

The climate is warm and semi-arid, averaging 24.1 °C with roughly 1,240 mm of rain a year; September is the wettest month and April the hottest. There are no hotels in the village: the nearest are 24 to 29 km away, and the restaurants in the area are in Jojutla and other towns 15 to 19 km off, so bring water and food.