Xilitla

The mountains of Xilitla were Huastec country long before the Spanish arrived, and the rugged landscape has helped shield the area from industrialisation and preserve its Huastec and Nahuatl cultures. Augustinian missionaries began working here in 1537, and in 1553 they began building the convent of Saint Augustine, the oldest monument in town. It was attacked and burned by the local peoples in 1569 and again in 1587, and the Augustinians largely abandoned it. Franciscans established a lasting missionary presence in the region only in the mid-18th century, and Xilitla long remained a remote farming area.

The town's modern fame began when the natural beauty of the area inspired the English artist Edward James. In the forest just outside town, between 1949 and 1984, he built scores of surreal concrete structures among natural pools and waterfalls, with the help of local workers and craftsmen, and he often stayed in a mock-Gothic cement house near the town centre that Plutarco Gastélum had built. After James's death in 1984, Gastélum halted the work, leaving several structures unfinished.

In 2007 a foundation backed by the Fundación Pedro y Elena Hernández, the cement company Cemex and the state government bought Las Pozas for about USD 2.2 million and created Fondo Xilitla to preserve and restore it. In 2011 Xilitla was added to Mexico's list of Pueblos Mágicos. A museum of Leonora Carrington's sculptures opened in the town in October 2018.

Xilitla has a large Indigenous population. About 30,000 of its people live in Indigenous households and around 20,000 speak an Indigenous language, principally Huastec, while Nahuatl culture is also strong; most speakers are bilingual in Spanish. Traditional farming life, based on coffee and citrus, shapes the calendar, and the town holds a coffee fair each August.

Surrealism gives the town its other identity. Edward James described Mexico as naturally surrealistic, and his garden at Las Pozas, with its Staircase to Heaven of columns modelled on orchid flowers and structures once meant to house his deer, flamingos and other animals, is the town's main attraction. The Leonora Carrington museum, a branch of the museum in the state capital, adds the work of another artist of the movement.

The landscape itself is central to local life. Many natural springs and caves surround the town, among them a cave a short walk away where green parrots fly out at dawn and return at dusk.

The municipality covers about 415 square kilometres of mountains and had 51,498 people in 2010, of whom 6,576 lived in the town of Xilitla itself; the rest live in villages spread across the hills. About 30,000 people live in Indigenous households, and most speakers of Huastec and other Indigenous languages also speak Spanish.

The economy is mainly agricultural, with coffee and citrus the main crops, grown on steep, fertile slopes watered by many springs. Tourism linked to Las Pozas and the Carrington museum adds guesthouses, restaurants and guiding work, and the town fills up on weekends and holidays, when visitors arrive for the garden.

To the north-east the mountains give way to flat land along the Tancuilín river and Mexican Highway 85, the main road through the Huasteca. A winding road of about 10 km links the town with the highway at La Y Griega, a large T-junction, from where Ciudad Valles lies about 100 km to the north and Tamazunchale about 50 km to the south; buses run hourly to both, and colectivo minivans run from La Y Griega.

Xilitla's food is Huastec. The dish that stands out is zacahuil, also spelled sacahuil, a giant tamal three to four feet long, wrapped in banana leaves and filled with pork on one side and chicken on the other. It is a traditional Huastec food and is seldom found outside the region. The wider Huasteca also makes bocoles, small corn cakes.

Coffee is the town's other contribution, grown on the hillsides around Xilitla alongside oranges and other citrus. It is served in the cafés of the centre and celebrated each August at the coffee fair.

Everyday meals are simple and cheap, from tamales and corn snacks at stalls around the square to home-style cooking in small restaurants. Food changes sharply between the two halves of San Luis Potosí state: where the capital on the dry plateau is known for its orange enchiladas potosinas, the green, humid Huasteca cooks with banana leaves and corn in forms such as zacahuil and bocoles.