Tlachichuca

Tlachichuca is the seat of the municipality of the same name in eastern Puebla, at about 2,600 metres on the plains of San Andrés, with Citlaltépetl, or Pico de Orizaba, Mexico's highest mountain at 5,747 metres, rising to the southeast. The town had 8,481 residents in 2020. Its name is usually read from Nahuatl as "place of artisans"; a Totonac reading gives "place where tears spring". Totonacs and Nahuas lived in the area, and after the Spanish conquest the town of Santa María de la Peña Tlachichuca was founded here. It answered to Tepeaca and later to the Chalchicomula district; in May 1807 residents asked the viceroy for their town lands, and in 1895 it became a municipality in its own right.

For most climbers heading up Pico de Orizaba, Tlachichuca is where the trip begins. Local outfitters drive mountaineers in 4x4 trucks up to the Piedra Grande hut at roughly 4,260 metres, a steep and very rough road that takes about two hours. The Reyes family has hosted climbers for decades at Servimont, an alpine-style lodge set in a compound about 150 years old that includes a museum of its former soap factory.

In the centre stands the parish church of the Inmaculada Concepción, founded in the 16th century; its patron's feast falls on 8 December. The snow-capped volcano is visible from the town's streets. Other communities in the municipality include San Francisco Independencia and Santa Cecilia Tepetitlán, and to the northeast the land climbs into the Sierra de Quimixtlán, where the rivers drain toward the Gulf of Mexico.