Oacalco

Oacalco comes from Nahuatl: ohuatl, ear of grain; calli, house; and the locative -co, so 'in the house of the ears of grain'. It is a locality in the municipality of Yautepec with 2,543 people in the 2020 census (2,634 in 2010), at roughly 1,240 m above sea level, with a warm climate and a pronounced summer rainy season.

Sugar explains the village. According to former mill workers' testimony in a local oral history, Oacalco was little more than a dead hacienda until 1923, when construction began on a sugar mill that brought work to the whole area; the population gathered around the factory while the rest of the landscape was cane fields.

The religious centre is the parish of Santa Inés de Montepulciano, a whitewashed church with a plain facade and a single-stage bell tower, set in a garden with old stone walls. Do not confuse the village with the ruined Hacienda Apanquetzalco, founded in 1613, which is also in the Yautepec municipality but is a different site.

Oacalco is not a place of famous monuments. It is a working village on the way between Yautepec and Tlayacapan, handy as a stop when exploring the area, with food stalls and a few local restaurants. We found no published opening hours or fees for any site in the village, so we give none.