Caltepec

Caltepec is a municipal seat of just 391 people (2020 census), at about 1,890 m in the Sierra de Zapotitlán, south of Tehuacán and right against the Oaxaca line. The municipality it heads, by contrast, is large, with nearly 400 km² and 38 communities. Its Nahuatl name means "hill of the houses".

The land is dry, and grows drier from west to east: semi-arid and temperate in the north and west, dry and warm along the Río Hondo, which forms the border with Oaxaca at about 1,100 m. The highest point is Cerro Chicamole at 2,760 m. There is low deciduous forest with cardón, copal and pochote, oak and juniper woods to the south and maguey, yucca and sotol scrub to the north, home to bobcats, deer and roadrunners.

The municipal history says it was a Zapotec and Mixtec settlement before the Conquest. The Spaniards Tenorio and Medina took it in 1522, by 1531 it was a corregimiento, and in 1895 it became a free municipality.

The oldest building is the 16th-century parish church of Santa María de la Asunción, with a carved image of the Virgin and murals showing scenes from the life of Christ. The patron is honoured on 15 August with Masses and processions, but the liveliest celebration is for the Señor de la Misericordia on Easter Sunday and Monday, with jaripeo, horse races and cane games. In Santiago Coatepec, in the southeast of the municipality, there is a Pitahaya Fair. Local cooking means mole poblano, pipián and tamales, with champurrado or mezcal, and palm hats are woven in the municipality.