Santiago Miahuatlán

What makes this town different is a chilli. Miahuatlán turkey mole is made with the region's own chilli, grown around Miahuatlán, Cuayucatepec and Tepanco de López, which unlike the poblano is both hot and sweet, leaving a sweet-and-sour taste. It also takes cacao, tablet chocolate, ancho and pasilla chillies, almonds, plantain, walnuts, raisins, sesame, spices and cocoles baked by the town's bakers. The table goes on with mole-pipián, tamales, tlaxcales, totopos, chileatole, hip or backbone mole and pit barbacoa. Miahuatlán, "among ears of maize", is the seat of its municipality and had 16,426 inhabitants in 2020, at 1,781 metres, only 12 km from Tehuacán, whose metropolitan area includes it.

In the 15th century Popoloca, Mazatec and Mixtec groups lived here, conquered first by Xelhua and later by the Mexica; in colonial times it was an encomienda, and as part of the old Tehuacán district it became a free municipality in 1895. The parish church dedicated to Señor Santiago dates from the 16th century. The big celebration is 25 July, the feast of Saint James the Apostle, with prayers, processions, fireworks, fairground rides and food stalls, when part of the harvest is offered to the saint so the next year's crops do well. The first Sunday of August brings the annual fair, the busiest, as people who emigrated to Mexico City, Veracruz and Oaxaca return. The traditional dances are the Tetuanís and the Twelve Peers of France.

The municipality covers 94.29 km² and climbs from 1,680 to 2,800 metres, from the valley floor to the first foothills of the Sierra de Zongolica. It is dry, warm country: averages of 14 to 20 °C and just 400 to 600 mm of rain, with seasonal streams running to the Salado river in the Papaloapan basin. Over half the land is desert scrub, and remnants of pine and oak survive higher up. It borders Chapulco, Nicolás Bravo, Tepanco de López and, on three sides, Tehuacán. People here weave palm and reed, embroider dresses by hand and make pumpkin sweets and peach, tejocote and apple preserves; they drink atole, chocolate, aguardiente and mezcal.