Mazamitla

Mazamitla trades in cold air and pine smoke - unusual selling points in Jalisco, and the reason its weekends fill. The pueblo magico sits at about 2,200 metres in the Sierra del Tigre, and its centre plays the mountain-village role with conviction: steep-pitched roofs, white walls with red trim, wooden balconies, and the parish of San Cristobal whose chalet-like facade with its shingled tower is the town's postcard. Around the plaza, shops sell rompope, preserves, wool and cheese; kitchens do borrego al pastor, bacon-wrapped everything and hot ponche. The hills beyond are dense with cabañas for rent - fireplaces, decks and pine views - which is what most visitors come for, along with the family adventure parks strung along the ridges: zip lines, horse trails, ATV routes and the Cascada El Salto, a fifteen-metre waterfall reached by a short walk. Winter mornings bring genuine frost and, occasionally, snow flurries that make the state news. Midweek the town returns to its own quiet rhythm.

History

The name comes from the Nahuatl mazatl, "deer", mitl, "arrow", and tlan, "place", read as the place where deer are hunted with arrows or where the arrows are made. Tradition holds that the town was founded in 1165, and that Miguel Hidalgo, as priest of the area, said mass at Palo Gordo using an oak trunk, kept as a relic, for an altar (Wikipedia, Mazamitla).

What to look for

• The chalet plaza - shingled tower, wooden balconies and red trim.
• The cabin hills - fireplaces and pine decks above town.
• Cascada El Salto - the fifteen-metre fall in the forest.
• The mountain kitchens - borrego, ponche and rompope.

When to go

October to March for the cold that is the point; weekends are busiest and dearest, midweek is half the price and twice the quiet.

Good to know

This is domestic weekend tourism at scale - quad bikes, loud cabins and full parking lots on holidays. Cabin quality varies enormously; read before booking. Roads in wind steeply.

Nearby

Lake Chapala's shore lies northwest; Tapalpa and Ciudad Guzman sit across the sierra west.

Key facts