Bernardo Servin

Bernardo Servin sent the following,

PopocatÈpetl is also named don Gregorio (the one that overlooks), IxtaccÌhuatl or Iztaccihuatl is also named doÒa Rosita (Mrs. Rosie), and also named La Volcana (the Volcaness) by the people that live in the vicinity of the Sierra Nevada which is the offical name of the mountains in the area. It is an area in which electrical storms are very frecuent and one of the local traditions says that if a person survives after being struck by a lightning or thunderbolt, that person becomes a "granicero" (hailer) or "tiempero" (future forecaster) that can tell people's future, the graniceros meet in the caves that sorround PopocatÈpetl and IztaccÌhuatl and they have concluded that Popo is very angry because of pollution near both volcanoes. IztaccÌhuatl is actually a series of five volcanoes very close to each other forming a single summit.

Popo and Ixtac are part of the Transverse Neovolcanic axis that crosses MÈxico from west to east, beginning the Everman Volcanoe off the Michoacan State coast and ending in the CitlaltÈpetl (Mountain of the Star) or Pico de Orizaba, near Orizaba where I live.

If you ever come to the Popo-Ixtac area not leave without visiting the town of Tlalmanalco that has a open chapel built in the XVI century by the Franciscan missionaries on top of an indian temple from which only the stairs are left.

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