Tlacotepec

The usual reading of Tlacotepec's Nahuatl name is "place between hills", which suits a village at about 1,750 m on the foothills of Popocatépetl, some 4.5 km north of Zacualpan de Amilpas, its municipal seat. It is the larger of the two: 5,388 people in 2010, nearly 60 percent of the municipality. Under a deal struck in 2000, the mayor's office alternates between people from Tlacotepec and from Zacualpan.

A cross in the atrium of the church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción is dated 1639, probably the year the building was finished; inside are colonial paintings and an altarpiece called El Paraíso. One kilometre from the centre stand the ruins of the Chicomocelo hacienda, "place of the seven jaguars", built by the Jesuits in the 17th century to turn cane into sugar in its trapiches. It declined after the order was expelled in 1767 and was abandoned shortly before Independence. Walls, vaults, canals, aqueducts and a roofless church remain, with a small dam in front. The big millstones once used for wheat were moved to the village centre for display. The Xoloxuchitl community museum keeps pre-Hispanic and colonial pieces.

The main festival honours the Assumption from 1 to 15 August, with midnight mañanitas, a noon Mass and fireworks on the 15th; Candlemas, on 2 February, comes second. Expect chinelo and huehuenchis dancers and jaripeos (rodeos) through the year. Pan de Tlacotepec is baked in hand-built adobe ovens fired with local wood, and coffee grows in the old orchards. Cerro Gordo gives views of Popocatépetl, whose crater is about 25 km away.