Historic Center

There’s something immense about small, highland towns. It’s like the rise and fall of the surrounding hills somehow draws out or undoes the cluster of houses that dot the horizon. Houses in Tetela are sometimes old, with tile roofs and white walls. They’re arranged around the Plaza de la Constitución main square, where palm and pepper trees have long intermingled. A star in the middle of this square marks the spot where a dancing water fountain sometimes shoots out. There are monuments on either side: one to Benito Juárez and the other to “The Three Juans”: Juan Crisóstomo Bonilla, Juan Nepomuceno Méndez, and Juan Francisco Lucas, three generals that earned glory during the Second French Intervention. For years, it’s been the site where they hold civic and religious celebrations as well as a number of cultural events. A block away there’s the Mercado Municipal, a market where ladies prepare gorditas starting early in the morning.