Plan de Arroyos

Plan de Arroyos is the largest community in the municipality of Atzalan, bigger than the municipal seat itself: the 2020 census counted 3,387 residents. It sits at about 820 metres on the slopes falling toward the Bobos River basin, 23 km from Tlapacoyan and 11 km from El Cuajilote, one of the two excavated sites in the Filobobos archaeological zone.

Coffee runs the place. The village calls itself "the cradle of coffee" and high-grown beans are farmed on the surrounding hills; older growers call the March-to-May fog "blandura" and credit it with bringing the coffee plants into flower. Citrus, bananas, maize and allspice are grown too. The climate is semi-warm and wet, averaging around 22 °C with roughly 2,600 mm of rain a year, so mist hangs over the plaza much of the time. The one famous break in that mild weather came on the night of 23 December 1989, when several hours of snow fell and wiped out the coffee and banana harvests.

Over time it became the trading centre for this part of Atzalan, with a market, a sports ground, an auditorium and an IMSS hospital. Two dates fill the streets: the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe on 12 December, with Mass and a small fair, and the May fair, now running from the 9th to the 20th with rides, fireworks, dances, cockfights and horse races, plus the crowning of a coffee-blossom queen.