Although many tourists pour through the area, the town has maintained its traditional lifestyle. The men who guide speak some Spanish, but most of the women and children speak only Purepecha.
Women make and wear traditional clothing, and families build wooden houses in the traditional style.
I talked to Don Francisco, the man of the house where I stayed. He spoke in broken Spanish, and he demanded a tip for taking the time to answer my questions. The earth shook for forty days, hard. It shook three or four times a day. On February 20, at 3 in the afternoon the peasant volcano, Paricutin, was born.