Santa Cruz Moxolahuac

Few Puebla communities sit as high or as far north as Santa Cruz Moxolahuac: its houses cluster at 2,776 metres on the northern tip of Tlahuapan, and just across the line lies Nanacamilpa de Mariano Arista, in Tlaxcala. To the south its immediate neighbour is Guadalupito las Dalias, another locality of the same municipality. The census counted 887 people here in 2020 in about 228 homes, so this is a small settlement ringed by fields, ravines and patches of forest.

Life turns on the land. Farming is the main occupation, backed by livestock and grazing, while trade is slowly growing. The village has a preschool, a primary school and a telesecundaria, and its local office stands at the corner of Domingo Arenas and Avenida Emiliano Zapata. The municipal government classes it as an inspectoría: every three years a residents' assembly elects its auxiliary inspector. The ejido members, for their part, run their own committee of president, secretary and treasurer, and many households rely on federal support for farming, health and older people.

Tlahuapan covers the lower slopes of the Sierra Nevada between 2,300 and 3,500 metres and borders both the State of Mexico and Tlaxcala. About 41% of its area is still forest and just over half is farmed; average temperatures run from 8 to 16 °C, with 900 to 1,100 mm of rain a year. Its streams feed the upper Atoyac basin, among them Las Rositas, Río Grande and Chiautonco. The ruins of the old Guadalupito las Dalias hacienda are among the municipality's monuments. Local cooking leans on trout, broad-bean soup, bean tamales and preserved tejocote, washed down with pulque, cider and fruit wine.