Dimas López

The Ajajalpan river runs past Dimas López, and that stream is what the photo shows: green water between wooded slopes on the northern edge of Puebla's Sierra Norte. The settlement belongs to Olintla, counted 663 residents in the 2020 census and sits at roughly 512 metres, far lower than most mountain towns. It lies so close to the state line that Zozocolco, on the Veracruz side, is about 6 km away and Poza Rica about 45 km, while the city of Puebla is some 138 km off.

Olintla's name is Nahuatl, and Wikipedia gives two readings: "place of earthquakes" or "place where there is rubber". The municipality is small, a little over 66 km², bordering Veracruz, Jopala, Ixtepec and Hermenegildo Galeana to the north and Huehuetla and Caxhuacán to the east. Almost all of it drains into the Laxaxalpan, a tributary of the Tecolutla, inside the large Tuxpan–Nautla hydrological region. Besides the Ajajalpan, INEGI lists the Tapayula, San Pedro and Tecuantepec as year-round rivers, which accounts for how green the country is.

Rain falls in every month here: the municipal compendium records 2,400 to 3,600 mm a year and temperatures of 18 to 24 °C, a humid semi-warm climate. Just over a quarter of the municipality is still tropical forest and nearly a fifth is woodland; the rest is cornfields, coffee and pasture. Totonac and Nahuatl are spoken in the area, and INEGI names woodcarving, cedar furniture, embroidery, pottery and wool weaving as local trades. Food includes chicken tixmole, mole de siembra, tamales and barbacoa, with jamoncillo for dessert; the music at fiestas is huapango.