El Arbol del Tule

The tree in the churchyard at Santa Maria del Tule has the greatest trunk girth of any tree measured on the planet: an ahuehuete - Montezuma cypress, Mexico's national tree - some 14 metres in diameter and around 42 in circumference, its mass so far beyond expectation that first-time visitors laugh out loud. Estimates of age cluster around two thousand years, and for a long while botanists argued it must be several trunks fused; DNA testing settled it as a single organism. The surface is the delight: the trunk's folds and bulges have been read for generations into a bestiary that village children will recite for a coin, pointing out the elephant, the lion, the pineapple, the crocodile and the face of a fish in the bark's contortions. The church of Santa Maria beside it looks like a doll's house by comparison. The tree is watered and monitored carefully - the valley's falling water table is the modern threat - and the town around it keeps a small plaza of quesadilla stands, nieves and craft stalls for the twenty minutes most people plan and the hour they actually stay.

What you actually see

• The trunk - 42 metres around, folded like poured wax.
• The bark bestiary - animals and faces pointed out by village guides.
• The little church - dwarfed entirely by its neighbor.
• The plaza - ices, quesadillas and crafts in the shade.

When to go

Any day; mornings and late afternoons give the best light on the trunk and thinner tour traffic. It is a scheduled stop on nearly every Mitla-Tlacolula tour.

Honest expectations

It is one tree - the visit is short by design, best combined with the eastern valley route. The enclosure fee is small and funds the tree's care. Photographs never convey the scale; stand beside it instead.

Nearby

Teotitlan's weavers, Mitla's mosaics and the Tlacolula Sunday market continue east along the same highway.