Cascadas de Ahuehuetla

Turquoise-to-emerald water, a main drop of about ten metres and a smaller fall just below it: that is what waits at the end of the trail from San Agustín Ahuehuetla, a hamlet of 545 people in 2020 at 1,531 m, south of the Puebla valley. Many locals call them the El Aguacate falls, after a nearby community. No road reaches the water; you leave the car in the village or at a parking area where the dirt road ends and continue on foot beside the river, shaded by big ahuehuete trees. One account puts the rocky path at about 2 km; another at nearly 4 km, 40 minutes to an hour of walking. The second and taller drop lies some 300 m upstream of the first.

Pools form at the foot of both falls. Some are shallow, others deep or with a strong current, so pick your spot carefully with children. People swim, jump in from the rocks, climb beside the falls and camp in marked areas; there is no formal lodging, so bring a tent. The rainy season brings the fullest flow and the best colour. Sturdy shoes, insect repellent, sunscreen, water and food are advised, and every scrap of rubbish should go home with you. Some visitors hire a local guide; others simply ask villagers for directions.

Huehuetlán el Grande, "old place", covers about 264 km² and has been a municipality since 1895; its seat is Santo Domingo Huehuetlán. A third of the land is tropical dry forest and almost a fifth temperate woodland, with temperatures of 17 to 23 °C and 700 to 900 mm of rain a year; warm, semi-warm and mild climates meet here. Its streams drain to the Atoyac basin. Mixtec and Nahuatl are spoken, and some families still make pottery and weave otate cane and reed. The seat has the 16th-century church of the Assumption and the sanctuary of the Divino Niño de La Candelaria. To eat: mole poblano, pipián, tamales and pan criollo; for sweets, pumpkin, jamoncillo and xemezcal, maguey heart cooked in an earth oven, with atole, chocolate or mezcal.