Acueducto de San Felipe del Agua

The Acueducto de San Felipe del Agua, also called the Oaxaca aqueduct, brought drinking water to the colonial city of Antequera, today's Oaxaca City, from springs on the slopes of the Cerro de San Felipe, the forested mountain of the Sierra Norte that rises north of the city. The channel ran south from the village of San Felipe del Agua across open plain and ravines, passing the old Hacienda Aguilera, the Jalatlaco river and the village of Xochimilco, and ended at a water tank beside the church of Carmen Alto. From that tank an underground network of pipes fed the public fountains of the city.

Construction began in the first half of the 18th century and the work was finished in 1751; the Spanish Wikipedia article names Juan G. Márquez, Manuel Landeta, José Sánchez and Juan de Pascua y Obrien as its financiers. Earlier water works from San Felipe are recorded, but this is the aqueduct whose arches survive. It is built of fired brick and Oaxaca's green cantera stone, on round arches, and it kept supplying the city until after 1940. Today it carries no water, but long sections still stand, many of them now woven into the houses of the northern neighbourhoods.

The best-preserved and most striking part is the arcade that crosses the small ravine of the Jalatlaco river in Xochimilco, known as La Cascada, where the arches stand much taller to bridge the drop and the surroundings have been tidied into a small park. Just downstream, the lower arches continue for about 300 m along Calle Rufino Tamayo as the Arquitos de Xochimilco, with doorways tucked beneath them. Further north, stretches of the old channel and a large arcade survive near San Felipe del Agua itself, so the line of the aqueduct can be followed for several kilometres on a walk or bike ride toward the mountain.