Santa Catarina

Anyone driving down from Cuernavaca toward Tepoztlán passes through Santa Catarina, often without realising it is a village of Nahua origin with its own full name: Santa Catarina Zacatepec, also Zacatepetl, "grass hill". Its land is held in common and its built-up area lies inside El Tepozteco National Park, with El Texcal state park to the south and Tepoztlán itself to the east. The 2020 census counted 5,552 people, and among the older residents Nahuatl is still spoken.

Dominican friars arrived during the colonisation and raised the church of Saint Catherine of Alexandria here in the early 17th century; it is the most visible piece of local heritage, with its bell tower and stone walls. In 1580 the village appears as Zacatepetlatl, and it belonged to Hernán Cortés's Marquesado del Valle de Oaxaca. Two springs lie to the south: the larger, called Alwazko, has a very old ahuehuete tree from whose roots, residents say, the water wells up, and the smaller, Texolotla, looks like a cave overgrown with vegetation.

The local economy mixes maize, tomatoes and cucumbers with the eateries strung along the road, where the dishes include pumpkin-seed mole verde or pipián, red mole, bean tamales and tlacoyos. Cultural life shows itself above all in dances: xochipitzahuac, pastoras, chinelos, tecuanes and tepalcuanes.