Angangueo, Ocampo and some other little villages

The sleepiness of the area afforded us enough time to explore the communities around the sanctuary. Some of them, such as, Angangueo, relies on the influx of tourists during the winter months to survive the rest of the year. Other smaller ones are dependant on logging and mono-cultural farming. Maize in this region.

It's genuine hand-to-mouth living. Almost every available, arable patch of ground is used to grow crops. The men were ploughing the field with donkeys and women handwashing with freezing mountain water from a plastic pipe or sweeping the dirt floor outside their modest timber dwelling.


Again, as with the majority of these heritage places, there's little for kids to do. There's a single school which teaches younger grades in the morning and the older ones in the arv.

Although required to attend secondary school, in rural areas like this, high schools are hard to come by and a qualified teacher even more so. Thus, as we witnessed during the short time we spent among them, the day seem to offer pinball machines and soft drink in the local shop and as night falls - much to the chargrin of the adults - dangerous merrimaking in the main plaza with fireworks and loud music.