Chiconquiaco

Chiconquiaco is a mountain town north of Naolinco, high in the range that bears its name, the Sierra de Chiconquiaco. At about 2,200 meters it sits well above Naolinco, and the road up climbs through pastures, pine and cloud forest into a landscape that is often wrapped in fog, as moist air from the Gulf of Mexico piles up against the mountains.

The town is the seat of a rural municipality of some fourteen thousand people spread across dozens of small communities. It is not a tourist town, which is much of its appeal: a quiet main square, a parish church, and wide views over the ridges when the clouds lift.

The best time to come is around June 29, the feast of San Pedro and San Pablo, the town's patron saints. For more than half a century, dance groups of children, young people, and elders have taken to the streets with the Danzas de Conquista, dancing for hours in bright costumes, tall feather headdresses, and hand-carved wooden masks.