Cuesta Blanca

Cuesta Blanca is one of six juntas auxiliares, or sub-municipal districts, of Palmar de Bravo, on the eastern edge of the Puebla plateau known as the San Andrés plains. It sits at about 2,356 m, east of the municipal seat and a few kilometres from the Puebla–Orizaba toll road. Every three years its residents elect their own auxiliary president and four councillors.

What sets it apart within the municipality is poultry: the federal encyclopedia of municipalities names poultry farming as its main economic activity, while almost every other community there lives mainly from crops. The surrounding fields are rain-fed, planted with maize, alfalfa, wheat and broad beans, in a semi-dry temperate climate with summer rain and little the rest of the year.

The village has grown almost without pause for more than a century. The 1900 census counted 607 people and the 1910 one just 601; from then on the number only went up, to 1,227 in 1950, 3,208 in 2000 and 4,824 in 2020.

Religious life in the municipality centres on Saint Augustine, patron of the seat, whose fair is held around 28 August in Palmar de Bravo, home to his late 16th-century church. Palm weaving and ixtle (agave fibre) ropes are local crafts, and barbacoa en mixiote is the dish to look for. To the southwest of the municipality rises the Sierra de Soltepec, a chain of dry, rocky hills topping 2,800 m.