Zapotitlán Salinas

South of Tehuacán the country turns dry almost at once: limestone and gypsum hills bristling with columnar cacti, tetecho and barrel cacti. In the middle of that valley, at about 1,500 m, sits Zapotitlán Salinas, the seat of Zapotitlán municipality and one of the easiest ways into the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve. Around 2,700 people live here, working the land, the salt and the stone.

The dryness has a simple cause. Moist Gulf winds drop their rain on the Sierra Madre Oriental and arrive here with little left, which leaves a cactus scrub that botanists rank among the most diverse in the world. The Zapotitlán river, also called the Salado, carries sodium salts, and salt has been taken from pans along it since before the Spanish arrived. More than 70 producers still work them.

The municipal history traces the name to Xapotl or Xopanatl, a Popoloca lord of Cuthá. The remains of that pre-Hispanic city, one of the main centres of the Lower Mixteca, lie on Cerro Cuthá next to the town. The present town was laid out between 1550 and 1560, was granted the title of villa in 1875 and became a free municipality in 1895.

The parish church of San Martín Obispo dates from the 16th century; the records of the Tehuacán diocese date the parish to 1578 and list it as the oldest in that jurisdiction. The main fiesta is on 24 October, with a fair, processions and dances, and a second one falls on 11 November, Saint Martin's day.

Onyx is quarried in the municipality, especially at La Venta on the road to San Antonio Texcala, and Los Reyes Metzontla makes burnished pottery. Local dishes include totolmole (turkey mole), barbacoa and mole de caderas, with garambullo liqueur and mezcal from regional agaves such as papalomé.