San Miguel Teotongo Cablebús

The San Miguel Teotongo Cablebús may turn out to be the big star on Cablebús Line 2.  First off, the cable car drops passengers off in already quaint, hilly, central San Miguel. Then, there’s the stellar community museum just around the corner. Up the street (Calle Genaro Vázquez), a once ramshackle collection of shops is today a mini-community market. On Sundays, it spills out onto a Nardo street tianguis that spreads to a few other streets in the immediate area.

International visitors get a concise, utterly charming intro to a hillside community that’s welcoming, colorful, and alive with culture. Originally settled in about 1970 by Chocholtec people from Oaxaca, the town has been growing ever since. It’s unique in that people of the Chocholtec ethnic region have usually sought anonymity and dispersion as strategies for survival. San Miguel Teotongo is the exception in its attempt to re-unite people from Teotongo in Oaxaca.

Teotongo

• Teotongo, the town name, has a few differing interpretations. Of Nahuatl original, it’s been argued that it derives from Xadeduxö meaning “town of the Sun.” It may derive however from Teotolco, meaning “in the diocese.” Or similarly, from Teotonco, “place of the little god.”
• The station logo tries to account for these variations, with the sun derived from a golden pectoral shield discovered in Zaachila. This is above the pyramid of Monte Albán in Oaxaca.

At last, the community museum will show that the area has been inhabited for millennia. Today though, it’s a better-connected town. It may not be as ancient as Santiago Acahualtepec immediately to the north. But in the end, the San Miguel Teotongo Cablebús may make it the place to be along line 2.