San Juan Guelavía

Guelavía sits on the floor of the Tlacolula valley at about 1,600 metres, in a tiny municipality of barely 31 square kilometres where almost everyone lives in the seat itself: 3,175 people in the 2020 census (INEGI). Numbers have crept up since 1,505 in 1900, peaking at 3,645 in 1980, dipping to 2,992 in 1990 and recovering since.

Sources date the founding to 1560 and the land titles to 1723, and work on the parish church in the centre began in the 18th century. The name is Zapotec and has several readings: one ties it to midnight and to the first settlers arriving at dusk, another, noted by Echarri, renders it as "cornfield of air". Salt was worked in the area from pre-Hispanic times and traded for other goods.

What the town is best known for is river reed. Until the 1950s residents wove baskets and other pieces from carrizo, and plastic wiped out much of that trade. Since 2011 the local Telesecundaria has run the Feria del Carrizo on the last Sunday of January and the first Sunday of February, with baskets, food and dances. The main patronal celebrations fall in the last week of January and on 24 June, the day of San Juan Bautista.

More than half of residents aged three and over speak an indigenous language, mostly Zapotec. A community museum beside the market covers local history and traditions, and the municipality has a preschool, primary school, telesecundaria and a CBTa 317 agricultural high school. It is a town to walk through, easy to pair with Teotitlán del Valle or Tlacolula.