San Pedro Benito Juárez

No other settlement lies so close to Popocatépetl's crater: just 11.4 km separate San Pedro Benito Juárez from the volcano's mouth, with Santiago Xalitzintla next on that list, which is why it is regarded as the community most at risk in an eruption. It spreads over the slopes of the Sierra Nevada in the west of the municipality of Atlixco, 2,319 metres up, and had 3,302 inhabitants in 2020. The seat, Atlixco, is 14 km away in a straight line and the state capital about 39 km.

The name has had its own ups and downs. For centuries it was San Pedro Coaco; in the late 1930s it was changed to a bare Benito Juárez, which people never fully took up, and around 1950 the current form joining the apostle and the president was settled on. The main fiesta falls on 29 June, Saint Peter's day, but starts a week earlier, with fairground rides and dances the weekend before. The highlight is the combat between Moors and güizos: dancers in flowered kerchiefs, shiny capes and masks line up and face each other with real machetes while a voice narrates the fight.

The only main route is a two-lane paved road down to Atlixco, which doubles as the evacuation route. The municipality of Atlixco covers 293 km² and descends from the mountain slopes into a warm valley known for its flowers, such as gladiolus, chrysanthemum, tuberose and marigold, and for its native and grafted avocados. Its climates range from semi-cold up high to semi-warm in the valley, with 900 to 1,300 mm of rain; about 13% of the land is still forest. Atlixco works polychrome clay and embroiders shirts, and its flavours include consomé atlixquense, cecina, cumin tamales and jeripa, a pink sweet made from rice flour.