Cascada Monumental

Three hundred and sixty-five stone steps, one for each day of the year, lead down to the foot of this waterfall in the gorge of the Quetzalapan river. Maps label it Cascada Monumental, and it lies about 250 metres from the Salto de Quetzalapan eco-park, which is the way in. Figures for its height do not agree: some guides say about 100 metres, others 200. The river rises in the Chignahuapan lagoon; in the rainy season the fall swells dramatically, while from November to May it runs calmer. Mornings are often misty. Though usually linked with Chignahuapan, about 8.5 km away, the waterfall actually sits in Zacatlán municipality, some 7 km from the town centre and under a kilometre from San Joaquín Tomatlán, a community of 1,253 people in 2020 at 2,204 metres.

Before it was an outing, the fall turned turbines. A hydroelectric plant opened here in 1931 and supplied power to Chignahuapan, Zacatlán and Tixtla; it shut down in the 1980s because running it had become too costly, and some of its machinery is now on show in a small museum inside the park. Lookouts at the top give a view of the drop without the climb. For something more active there is a suspension bridge, a cable walk strung about four metres above the river, ziplines, archery, a climbing wall and rappelling beside the water. There are also camping areas, riverside palapas, barbecue grills, a café, toilets and parking.

Around it is highland Zacatlán, all forest and orchards. The town, a Pueblo Mágico since 27 April 2011, owes its nickname "of the Apples" to the apple, one of its main crops, and its Nahuatl name is usually translated as "place where grass abounds". The municipality is temperate and humid, with mean temperatures of 12 to 20 °C and between 700 and 2,100 mm of rain depending on the area; about 39 % of its land is still forested and its water drains to the Laxaxalpan, the Nexapa and other tributaries of the Tecolutla, bound for the Gulf. Near the park runs a dirt road called Tulimán; Tulimán is also one of the communities that left Aquixtla in 1880 to join Zacatlán, together with Otlatlán and Cuacuila.