Alta Luz Cuatro Rayas

One of the seasonal streams crossing Ixcaquixtla is called Cuatro Rayas, and the same name is carried by this community of 1,722 people in 2020, the most populous in the municipality after the seat. It stands at 1,852 m, about 7 km in a straight line from San Juan Ixcaquixtla and 69 km from Puebla city; Tehuacán, 51 km away, is the nearest large city. The landscape is a working valley: over 70% of the municipal land is farmed, the rest is scrub, and the climate is mild, averaging 16 to 18 °C with 600 to 800 mm of rain a year, mostly in summer.

The municipality's name has several readings. Tradition renders it as "the place where someone is called", recalling a first settler who, alone, called out to a passer-by to stay; a document from 1520 spells it Yxcaquixtlan, "where cotton comes out", and in Popoloca it was known as the place of many ponds. The Popoloca heritage is still visible in pyramid platforms in and around the seat, and in 2004 a pre-Hispanic tomb with mural painting was found, now in INAH custody and closed to the public. Beside the old Colorado reservoir a battle of the War of Independence was fought on 1 January 1817.

In the seat, a few minutes away, stand the Churrigueresque parish church of San Juan Bautista, from the 17th century; the 16th-century Soledad chapel; the granary where the valley's harvest was stored; the 18th-century Casa de Altos; a French-style Porfirian house and the old railway station on the royal road to Atenayuca. Nearby are former haciendas such as El Barragán, founded by the Jesuits. The main fiesta is on 24 June, and on 12 December comes the Noche del Maíz. People here weave palm mats, reed baskets and rope goods, and eat ash tamales, chicharrón teteles, tlaxcales, huaxmole and chilate with tempesquistle, with criollo plum atole and sweets.