Santa Isabel Cholula

Santa Isabel Cholula is the seat of a small municipality, about 33 km², in the south of the Cholula valley, between Ocoyucan, Atlixco and Tianguismanalco. The village had 2,117 people in 2020 and stands at about 2,110 m, 10 km from Cholula. Its parish church of the Visitation of Saint Elizabeth dates from the 16th century. The municipality was created in 1895, and "Cholula" has been translated as "to fall into the water".

Life here has a curious detail: in 1920 Miguel Ortega y Rojas began making a cider that became the local drink, along with fruit wines and mezcal. The kitchen offers mole poblano, pipián, tamales and huaxmole, with fig, peach and tejocote preserves and squash sweets.

The dance costumes are the most striking thing. Men once wore cotton shirt and trousers with a cape front and back, trimmed with coloured bands, sequins, pearls and gold-thread fringe, embroidered white stockings, a cartridge belt and a mask. The "apaches" wear feather headdresses and painted bodies; the "zarpadores" a royal-blue jacket, red trousers, mitre hat and a mask with moustache and beard; the "turcos" a turban with a peacock feather. Almost all the municipality is farmland, with a mild climate of 15 to 17 °C, watered by the Nexapa and Xalapexco rivers.