San Mateo Ozolco

Its Nahuatl name combines otli, road, zoltic, old or worn, and the locative co, so Ozolco means "on the old road"; the San Mateo in the name is Matthew the Evangelist, its patron saint. It is the highest, most mountainous village in the municipality of Calpan: it sits at 2,674 metres, in the western part of the municipality that already belongs to the Sierra Nevada, the range of Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl. The 2020 census counted 2,890 residents. Seen from a satellite, the houses stretch northwest to southeast along a ridge, flanked by dark tree-filled ravines, with crop plots in the clearings.

The municipality covers about 67 km², with elevations from 2,240 to 2,840 metres, and borders Huejotzingo, Domingo Arenas, Nealtican, San Pedro Cholula, San Jerónimo Tecuanipan and San Nicolás de los Ranchos. Before the Spanish arrived, Calpan was a small independent lordship of Olmeca-Xicalanca roots, closely tied to Huejotzingo; during the Conquest it sided with Tlaxcala, and Hernán Cortés crossed its land in 1519 on his way to Tenochtitlan. In the municipal seat, San Andrés Calpan, the Franciscans built around 1548 the convent with posa chapels that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Up in Ozolco, meltwater rules. Streams born high on Iztaccíhuatl form rivers such as the Alseseca, Acteopan, Actipitzi and Atlanepantla, all tributaries of the Atoyac. Around 16% of the municipality is still pine and oak forest, mostly on the mountain flanks and down in the ravines; the rest is maize and other rain-fed crops on sandy volcanic soil. It is cool up here: averages run from 8 to 16 °C, with 900 to 1,100 mm of rain, and part of the territory is already semi-cold. The area's fruit-growing tradition shows in the kitchen: candied figs, preserves of peach, pear and tejocote, cider, and liqueurs of capulín cherry, plum and tejocote.