San Miguel Tenango

A short drive from Zacatlán's clock shops and cider stores, San Miguel Tenango feels like a different world. It is a Nahua community where Nahuatl is still the everyday language for most people, and where many women and some men still wear traditional dress: embroidered blouses, wool wraps and sashes made on the loom.

Weaving and embroidery are the reason to come. Women in the village work together in workshops with backstrap and pedal looms and embroidery frames, and visitors can watch the process and buy pieces directly from the people who made them, with designs that carry Nahua motifs of plants, animals and stars. Food is the other draw, especially tamales wrapped in the broad papatla leaf, a Sierra Norte specialty.

Nearby, in the neighboring area of San Pedro Atmatla, are the remains known as Los Paredones, old stone walls said to belong to one of the earliest settlements in the Zacatlán area. Ask in the community whether someone can show you the way. Tenango's patron is San Miguel Arcángel, whose feast day falls on September 29, and Zacatlán's Festival Cuaxóchitl in May is another chance to see the surrounding villages' dances and crafts.