Cerro de Macuiltépetl

Cerro de Macuiltépetl, also spelled Macuiltépec, is a small extinct volcano in the north of Xalapa and the highest point in the city, at about 1,500 to 1,600 metres above sea level. Its slopes form the Parque Ecológico Macuiltépetl, a protected area of about 31 hectares surrounded by city streets, about 2.5 km north of the centre. The name is usually translated from Nahuatl as "fifth hill", though a study backed by the park's trust argues it means "mountain of the five peaks", since 19th-century maps show five summits, of which only two are now visible.

The hill is a monogenetic cone with steep slopes, formed in the late Pleistocene, up to about 30,000 years ago, and covered in andesitic or basaltic scoria. Accounts of Xalapa's origins say the Totonacs first settled around it. In 1922 William K. Boone, then head of the local chamber of commerce, designed a road for cars that spiralled to the summit, and wrote about it for Popular Mechanics in 1923. In the 1940s a pyramid-shaped mausoleum was built at the top for agrarian leaders including Úrsulo Galván.

Today the old spiral roads are footpaths that wind up through a mix of native cloud-forest trees such as sweetgum, cedar and ash, alongside planted ornamentals and fruit trees. Researchers have recorded about 180 bird species here, more than 40 percent of them migrants, and from the lookout tower counts of more than 51,000 migrating raptors have been made. The park has a small Museo de la Fauna, a colony of stingless melipona bees by the museum steps, children's play areas and the summit mausoleum, and the lookout gives one of the widest views over Xalapa. The entrance is in Colonia Aguacatal, beside the state cancer centre.