San Baltazar Atlimeyaya

The name says nearly everything: Atlimeyaya combines the Nahuatl atl, water, meyalli, to spring forth, and the place suffix yan, and is usually translated as "spring" or "place where water flows out". The other half of the name honours its patron, King Balthazar, one of the three Magi. The village belongs to Tianguismanalco municipality, on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada crowned by Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, and had 1,305 inhabitants in 2020 according to the INEGI census, at 2,182 metres. Atlixco, the city of flowers, is only 10 km away.

Tianguismanalco, "in the flattened market", has been a municipality since 1895 and belongs to the Atlixco and Matamoros valleys region. Nearly half its land, about 49.8%, is still forest, and most of the rest is farmland. It is crossed by the seasonal streams Apiaxco, La Leona and Xalapexco, which drain toward the Atoyac and Nexapa basins. North of the municipal seat rises the Malpaís de Nealtican, a tongue of volcanic sand and rock that forms the easternmost skirt of Popocatépetl, now covered in pine and oak and crossed by a few trails; tezontle is quarried along its edges.

The climate is humid for the region, with average temperatures between 6 and 18 °C depending on altitude and 900 to 1,100 mm of rain a year, turning semi-cold higher up. The municipality's cooking, according to INEGI, includes mole poblano, tamales, tlaxcales and trout, a dish that suits a village whose name means spring. Local crafts include clay comales and baskets woven from twigs. Anyone coming from Atlixco has the volcano straight ahead the whole way.