Atenayuca

"Place of walled-in water" is the usual reading of Atenayuca, which joins the Nahuatl words atl, water, and tenamitl, wall or fence, with a place suffix. The name fits what you see from above: a tree-lined strip of stream crossing the street grid in an otherwise dry, brown landscape. This is where the council of Juan N. Méndez sits; the town had 1,827 residents in 2020 and lies at 1,924 metres, about 41 km in a straight line west of Tehuacán and 72 km southeast of Puebla city. Its oldest building is the parish church dedicated to Saint Elizabeth, raised in the 16th century.

The municipality was created in 1895 and covers about 225 km² of the south of the state. To the north it meets Molcaxac, Xochitlán Todos Santos and Tlacotepec de Benito Juárez; to the south, Coyotepec and Atexcal; to the east, Tehuacán; and to the west, Ixcaquixtla and Tepexi de Rodríguez. Nearly two-thirds of the land is scrub and under a third is farmed; built-up area barely reaches 1%. Water runs only in season, along streams such as the Axamilpa, Las Garzas and La Magdalena, most of them part of the Balsas basin, though one corner drains toward the Papaloapan. The climate is mostly mild with sparse summer rain, averaging 12 to 20 °C and 600 to 800 mm a year.

People weave palm, work clay and draw ixtle fibre from maguey. On the table are mole poblano, pipián, tamales and pan criollo, with pumpkin sweets, jamoncillo and xemezcal, maguey heart cooked underground, for dessert; to drink, atole, chocolate, aguardiente or mezcal. Besides Spanish, about a hundred people speak Indigenous languages: Nahuatl, Mazatec and Popoloca. It suits travellers moving slowly through the Mixteca and the Tehuacán valley who want to see a scrubland municipal seat well away from the tourist circuit.