Santa María la Alta

Santa María la Alta's carnival is a contest: for three to five days in February or March, costumed men and boys dance through the streets in two camps, the barrenquero and the barrio macho, tied to the barrios of San Francisco and San Mateo, and on the last day the side that gathered more participants is counted the winner. This auxiliary town of Tlacotepec de Benito Juárez, in southeastern Puebla and within Tehuacán's orbit, counted 7,812 residents in the 2020 census and sits at 1,952 m, close to the Santo Nombre archaeological zone.

The town is split into four barrios, Santa Rosa, San Mateo, San Francisco and Santa Teresa, each with its own feast date; the celebration that brings them all together is that of the Immaculate Conception of Mary every 8 December, with processions, dances, flower arrangements and fireworks. The photo shows the church dedicated to her. For the Day of the Dead families build altars and decorate graves with flowers. Many people make a living from trade, carrying goods to states across the country, and Nahuatl is also heard among residents.

Santa María la Alta is the place in the municipality where making hats and other palm goods is customary; ribbon, feathers, henequen and plastic are worked too, and many pieces end up as decorations in the town's own fiestas. The municipality, about 400 km², is mostly semi-dry and temperate, averaging 12 to 18 °C with 400 to 800 mm of rain, and nearly half its land is farmed while another 39% is scrub. Local food includes mole poblano, barbacoa and tlacoyos, pitaya and xoconoxtle sweets, and pulque. In the seat, Tlacotepec, there is a 16th-century Holy Cross church and a house on Avenida Juárez that served Benito Juárez as an office for three days.