The springs are accessible by a path beside a small river full of water lilies leading through an exuberant forest.

Economic activities include cultivation of maize, sorghum, peanuts, beans and sesame, cattle and poultry breeding, and manufacture of handmade textiles, red brick and pottery that are sold throughout the country.

[1] In January 2010 the Inter-American Development Bank approved US$102 million in partial financing for two wind facilities in the region, one of which would be in Asunción Ixtaltepec.

[3] A traditional form of pottery made in the Santa Rita Barrio of Ixtaltepec is the “tinaca de mujer”, a water cooler in the form of a woman made of red clay, about one meter tall or slightly larger.

The figure has a bell-shaped skirt and tiny pointed breasts, and carries a shallow bowl of sand on her head in which there is a water jug decorated with lizards and perhaps turtles in low relief.