Two of my friends tell me that they got their start as expatriates living in Mexico in the town of Tepoztlán. For decades, the place has been a magnet for artists and other creative types, new agers, unreconstructed hippies, spiritual seekers and the mildly insane. In recent years, the wealthy have followed the more creatively-inclined pioneers. Today it serves as a weekend playground for well-heeled residents of Mexico City.

The vast majority of Tepoztlán's 35,000 residents, though, are ordinary Mexican people living quiet lives. They attend masses at one of the many churches.

From my hotel, I can hear the masses being said over public address systems set up for overflow crowds. Sunday school classes are held in church courtyards, in the near-perfect subtropical climate.

The bells in the foreground all have large cracks. In the Sixteenth Century, large bronze objects often contained flaws, unsurprising given the state of metallurgy at the time.

Images of the Virgin abound here as in most Mexican towns. A non-Catholic, I've accepted her comforting presence and miss seeing her image when I visit el norte.

Tension between the sacred and the secular exists here, too. A poster promotes birth control with a cartoon figure, "The Wandering Condom".

Elegant restaurants cater to visitors. I've eaten better meals here than in most San Miguel restaurants. But tourists usually come on weekends. I photographed this restaurant on a weekday—typically devoid of patrons. It was jammed on Sunday.

Everywhere you go in Tepoztlán, the surrounding craggy mountains provide a dramatic backdrop.

More modest eateries cater to ordinary people. I enjoyed the food I ate in places like this every bit as much as the fare in the ritzy joints.

The big chain markets—Gigante, Soriana, Wal-Mart—have been kept out by fierce community resistance. The Super Tepoz, below, is the biggest supermarket in town.

Some businesses are tiny. This mercer sells his ribbons from a shop; no wider than the doorway.

The Similar Pharmacy reminds me of Bob's Pretty Good Bank from Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegone. The motto at Bob's is "Never a borrower or a lender be." The motto at the Similar Pharmacy is "The same but cheaper."

Many internet cafés are scattered throughout town, catering to younger people

The anime image in the poster in this cybercafé warrants a closer look. She's an iPod, complete with Apple logo and control wheel!

From internet technology to ancient hand weaving techniques. Men who reweave rush seats ply their craft on sidewalks, not in shops. Customers invite them to come to their homes where they take chairs outside to renew them.

This man is one of your high-end re-weavers. You can tell because he's sitting on an upended plastic crate instead of the curb like most of the others do.

In Tepoztlán, garbage is collected using hand trucks with steel drums attached. Cuts down on congestion caused by garbage trucks stopping every block for fifteen minutes while neighbors bring out their trash. Plus it employs a lot of people. San Miguel Mayor Jesús Correa please take note.

In the vicinity of the central plaza, tourists like me wander around with digital cameras glued to their foreheads. New age devotees get their bodies massaged, their chockras aligned, and their colons cleansed. Spiritual seekers attend retreats. 95% of the people here don't care about any of that. They eat cecina (dried salted beef) in the mercado and plan their daughters' quincianeras (fifteenth birthday parties). They live peacefully in their beautiful town, the quality of their lives perhaps better than ours who live north of the border.