Sierra Norte
Imposing northern mountain range that ruins parallel to the Gulf of Mexico from the State of Nuevo Leon. Huge wall that retains the moisture and storms and hurricanes that ply the Gulf.
The Sierra Norte is home to many peoples of various cultures who have managed to live in balance with nature for thousands of years. The Zapotec, chinantecos, mixes and mazatecos have managed to develop their cultures in different ecological niches offered by this mountain range.
From heights of 10 thousand feet above sea level, down to 5000 on the central valleys or to the plains of the Tehuantepec Isthmus. Whether high peaks covered with coniferous forests, or deep canyons with or semi-tropical climates or wonderful valleys between the planes.
In general people living on this sierra, regardless of their ethnic origin, have a homogeneity in terms of their ways. As hermetic as the Mixtec people, but more negotiators and social. Perhaps because of their diversity and closeness with other peoples, they possess a superlative sense of identity and territoriality. The Sierra Norte Zapotecs, love parties and traditions, maintain before their brothers from the valleys and of the isthmus, a subtle but deep mystical sense of the world and life.
The Sierra Norte is perhaps the place where there are more wind bands in the State of Oaxaca. In effect, starting with the Mixe people, that considered themselves unconquered, they have an extraordinary sensitivity for music. From the earliest age, children learn the "tune" in the band, which all towns usually have.
The most important towns of the Sierra Norte are: Ixtlán, Villa Alta, Totontepec, Guelatao, Tlahuitoltepec, Calpulalpan, Macuiltianguis, San Francisco Cajonos, Talea, Zacatepec, Ayutla, to name a few. Districts comprising in its entirety are Ixtlan and Villa Alta, but touching part of the districts of: Cuicatlán, Choapam, Etla, Mixe, Tehuantepec, Teotitlan, Tlacolula, Tuxtepec and Yautepec.
THE SIERRA NORTE MOUNTAINS

The Sierra Norte, known as La Sierra Juarez, is a mountain range that runs parallel to the Gulf of Mexico, from the State of Nuevo Leon and as it narrows forms the waist of the nation in Oaxaca, almost joins with the Sierra Sur, mountain chain which runs down from Alaska parallel to the Pacific Ocean and in Oaxaca is called "Mixtec knot".
SANTA MARÍA TLAHUITOLTEPEC
HIERVE EL AGUA (Water Boils)

Our old grandparents kept intimate dealings with the land. For them the earth was a living being that felt and loved them. They maintained a mother-children relationship. As all living beings, earth has parts more sensitive than others.
Unquestionably that in the valleys of Oaxaca emanates from the depth of its bowels, an energy that radiates to all living beings and connects with the sky. Ancestral divine and mystical bridge. Oaxaca is a place where earth and sky kiss. Hierve el agua is an essential place for this love affair between man, earth and the universe.
YAATE : EL CERRO DE LA CENIZA. (YAATE: THE ASH HILL)
EL ZEMPOALTEPETL corazón espiritual Mixe
San Francisco Cajonos

At the top of the Oaxaca mountains, in one of the most important festivals of our culture, in the early evening, with a clean and clear sky, with a beautiful Moon big and generous, in the center of a pantheon, I had the opportunity to speak, perhaps the most moving talk about our old grandparents, that I have been able to pronounce in my life.