Xaltepuxtla

Xaltepuxtla has more people than its own municipal seat: with 3,484 residents in 2020 it is the largest of the 42 localities that make up Tlaola. It lies about 6 km from the seat and only 8 km in a straight line from Huauchinango, on a Sierra Norte hillside at about 1,330 m, and its people live mainly from farming and flower growing. Flowers take on a special role in early November, when Day of the Dead altars across the municipality are dressed with floral arrangements on the 1st and 2nd. Tulancingo, over the line in Hidalgo, is 42 km away.

Tlaola covers just over 108 km² in the north-west of the state, between Huauchinango, Chiconcuautla, Ahuacatlán, Tlapacoya, Jopala and Zihuateutla. Its first settlers were Totonac and Otomí people, conquered by the Triple Alliance and made tributaries of Texcoco; after the Spanish conquest the land was handed out in encomienda, by around 1750 it answered to the parish of Zacatlán, in the 19th century it belonged to the Huauchinango district, and in 1895 it became a free municipality. The seat keeps its 16th-century parish church of San Pedro. From 13 to 15 August the municipality honours the Virgin of the Assumption with processions, a jaripeo, brass bands, fireworks and the dances of the quetzales, voladores, tejedores and huehues. More than ten thousand people in Tlaola speak an indigenous language, including Nahuatl, Totonac and Mazatec.

It rains here all year, 2,400 to 2,600 mm, with a semi-warm, humid climate averaging 16 to 20 °C. The water drains to the Necaxa River and, to a lesser extent, the Laxaxalpan, both in the Tecolutla basin, and year-round streams such as the Acatlán, Nexapa, Tecpatlan and Zempoala cross the municipality. More than half the land is farmed and almost a third is still forest, with oak and pine along the rivers. Local cooking means mole poblano, bean tamales and chileatole, washed down with coffee and water-based chocolate.