Escamela

Escamela is a community in the municipality of Ixtaczoquitlán, on the edge of the Orizaba metropolitan area about 5 km from that city's centre along federal Highway 150. The name is usually read in Nahuatl as "land of ants" or "place of the ants", and it is shared with Cerro de Escamela, a 1,647 m hill between Orizaba and Ixtaczoquitlán that serves as a green lung for the valley.

The village has a place in the War of Independence. In 1812 the insurgents of José María Morelos defeated royalist troops under Brigadier Luis del Águila here, a fight that cleared the way for the capture of Orizaba later that year, and a parade still honours the local fighters every year. In December 1883 Escamela was made the municipal seat; the title then moved to Ixtaczoquitlán, to El Sumidero, and back to Ixtaczoquitlán for good in 1926. The earthquake of 28 August 1973 hit the community hard and brought down its church, Emperatriz de América.

Today Escamela is the busiest economic hub of the municipality. Strung along the Mexico City–Veracruz highway are paper plants such as Kimberly-Clark, a Holcim Apasco cement works and one of Pemex's most important fuel storage terminals in the state, while the surrounding ranches grow coffee, chayote and oranges. What draws visitors are the Arcos de Escamela, the rebuilt church and, above all, the hill. Hawks, opossums and armadillos still live on it, possible marine fossils have been reported in its caves, and its summit, looking over Orizaba city and the snow cone of Pico de Orizaba, is a popular walk; many people climb it on 1 January for an open-air New Year mass.