Chichicuautla

Less than three kilometres from the houses of Chichicuautla lies the turquoise water of Alchichica, a lake inside a volcanic crater about 2 km across and up to roughly 60 metres deep. Its water is very salty and rich in magnesium; along the shore stand stromatolites, white crusts that look like stone or coral and rank among the oldest forms of life on Earth, and the lake is home to an endangered axolotl found nowhere else. Swimming is not advised because of the salt, but walking the rim and picnicking are fine, as long as you take your rubbish with you.

The village belongs to Tepeyahualco, in the east of the state near the Veracruz line. It sits at 2,337 metres and had 2,316 residents in 2020, about 470 more than a decade earlier. Its Nahuatl name combines chichic, bitter, cuauhtli, tree, and tlan, abundance: "where bitter trees abound". This is Llanos de San Juan country: flat ground broken by the odd lone hill, a cool semi-arid climate averaging 12 to 16 °C and only 300 to 700 mm of rain a year. Streams run only part of the year and drain into the closed basin of Lake Totolzingo. Almost half the municipality is farmed; the rest is grassland, scrub and some forest.

Tepeyahualco was founded by Viceroy Gastón de Peralta in 1556, but its great treasure is far older: Cantona, a pre-Hispanic city with a site museum, whose ruins point to people of Olmec, Teotihuacan, Nahua and Maya roots. Hacienda shells also survive, such as San José Tizaco, from 1891, San Roque, begun in 1847 with solid stone and timber from the Cofre de Perote, Micuautla and San Antonio Alchichica. Local cooking means mutton barbacoa, fava bean soup, grilled or batter-fried nopales, fava gorditas and rabbit stew, with pulque or aguamiel; for something sweet, tlaxcales of young corn and buñuelos. Clay pots are made in the municipality, and religious festivals are played with brass band, violin and flute.