San José Tuzuapan

Tuzuapan adds tuzun, gopher, to apan, river: the river of the gophers, a name that recalls the rodent that tunnels through farm fields. Saint Joseph, its patron, completes the name. It is a community of 4,148 people in 2020, at 2,114 m, in the south of the municipality of Quecholac, 59 km in a straight line from the capital and 57 km from Tehuacán.

Quecholac has a long history. It was an important Popoloca settlement that from 1398 to 1441 came under Mexica rule exercised from Tecamachalco; in 1519 the region fell on the conquest route and in 1531 it became a corregimiento. Franciscans ran its religious life between 1540 and 1560, and by the late 16th century it answered to Tepeaca. In 1812 royalist forces were defeated in the area, in 1862 French troops camped here and in 1895 the free municipality was born, 163 km² of land spanning 2,060 to 2,900 m. The 16th-century church of Santa María Magdalena, now in ruins, survives, as does the former hacienda of San Miguel de Osorio.

Temperatures run 10 to 16 °C, with 400 to 900 mm of rain. Two thirds of the land is farmed and almost a fifth is scrub; a small sector drains toward the Totolzingo lagoon. Local trades are varied: rope and fibre goods, timber worked for building, onyx and marble figures, plaster statues and sewing. The pantry includes preserves of apricot, peach, plum and capulín cherry, the sweets called trompadas, and drinks such as pulque, aguamiel and capulín, apricot, fig and cherry wines, alongside mole, pipián and chicharrón.