Santa Cruz El Veladero

El Veladero's name comes from a night-time scene: there was a well here that supplied water to the Hacienda de San Jerónimo Ometepec, some 800 metres higher up, and beside it fountains and troughs were built for mules, horses, donkeys, oxen and cows. When workers walked down at night to draw water, a line of people lighting their way with candles could be seen along the path from afar. The community lies 4 km from Ciudad Serdán, in Chalchicomula de Sesma, at 2,475 metres, and in 2020 it had 1,364 inhabitants, most of them working the land. Orizaba is about 42 km away.

The present village grew out of the struggle for land after the Revolution. Carlos Ortiz, his brother Fortino and Rosendo Arellano worked as labourers laying track for the Mexican Railway between Orizaba and Paso del Macho; on returning to Santa María Techachalco they found themselves left out of the land distribution and complained to the Local Agrarian Commission in Chalchicomula, without success. They sought support from Hilario Galicia, nicknamed El Gato Prieto, who was fighting for the lands of the San Jerónimo Ometepec and San Pedro Candelaria haciendas, and began inviting families from Techachalco, Candelaria, San Pedro Temamatla, Las Palmas, Santa Inés and Boca del Monte. Shots were fired to scare them, and Carlos Ortiz Lezama, Rosendo Arellano Ortiz and Eulalio Vázquez were even shot at in a Puebla hotel; from then on they travelled on foot at night along the railway to the Mexico–Veracruz highway near Rinconada. Ortiz Lezama paid the ejido paperwork out of his own pocket.

The landscape is ruled by the Citlaltépetl: Ciudad Serdán is 19.5 km from its summit and 14 km from the Sierra Negra volcano, home of the Large Millimeter Telescope. Almost two thirds of the municipality is the plain of the Llanos de San Andrés, with volcanic soils that soak up meltwater. 78.6% of the land is farmed. Among the colonial hacienda buildings is San Jerónimo, 8 km from the seat, and in Ciudad Serdán the aqueduct and the Arquería de San Juan, from 1723. Regional cooking has chileatole, triangular tlaxcales, mushroom texmole, huitlacoche quesadillas and broad-bean soup, with pulque or capulín and tejocote infusions.