Chavarrillo

Chavarrillo lies in the municipality of Emiliano Zapata, which wraps around Xalapa to the southeast, at about 873 metres. It has around 1,500 residents, known as chavarrillenses, and its traditional craft is pottery. It occupies the belt where the Cofre de Perote's slopes finish descending toward the coastal plain: the municipality is a tilted plane falling from west to east, with shallow ravines, heavy rain (about 2,780 mm a year) and average temperatures of 25 °C.

Cerro Chavarrillo, roughly 1,200 metres (4,000 ft) high, rises about four miles south of Xalapa's El Lencero airport and features in that airport's approach notes. Less than 2 km west of the village is Estación Chavarrillo, a separate community that grew up around the stop on the Xalapa–Veracruz railway; the El Jarocho passenger train ran on that line until service ended in August 1999, and today it carries freight.

The census record says a lot about the place: 175 people in 1900, only 170 in 1930, then a jump to 813 in 1950. Growth has been slow since. The village sits off the tourist circuit, half an hour from Xalapa on roads through Las Trancas and El Chico Three quarters of the municipality's land is farmed, and that is what surrounds the village: plots and open hills.