Molas

Molas is a comisaría of Mérida municipality, about 16 km south of the city, with roughly 2,000 inhabitants (1,859 at the 2005 count). It lies at about 10 metres above sea level inside the Cuxtal Reserve, the protected area that covers much of the south of the municipality and holds the wells that supply around half of Mérida's water. The village was formerly called Yaxcachalbac, Maya for "the great broken horn", and now carries the name of General Sebastián Molas Virgilio. Like other comisarías, it elects its own comisario municipal every three years.

Unlike most villages in the reserve, Molas did not grow out of a hacienda; together with Dzununcán it is one of the two comisarías in Cuxtal without one. Its ejido lands still hold some of the best-preserved low deciduous forest in the reserve, part of the protection zone around the Mérida I water plant. In August 2022 the reserve opened Casa Cuxtal here, its Centre for Environmental Training and Education: a school-style building with classrooms, a videomapping room, a palapa patio and green areas, used for courses, workshops and community activities. The reserve also runs a weather station in Molas.

The village centre has a church, the comisaría building with a plaque dated 1929, the older comisaría house, and a water tower. Outside the village are the remains of the old railway station and Maya archaeological remains, and about 1 km away is the private Hacienda San Antonio Chuntuac, one of the protected haciendas of the reserve. Molas is a quiet stop for anyone exploring the Cuxtal Reserve or the haciendas south of Mérida.