"The largest of the central East Cape Region towns, Santiago (population 2,500) was founded as Misión de Santiago el Apóstol in 1723 by Italian padre Ignacio Maria Nápoli.  The mission was abandoned in the latter half of the 18th century following a series of Pericú rebellions; and only in relatively recent times has agriculture revived the arroyo community.

A two - kilometer road flanked by vegetable plots, leafy fruit orchards, and blue fan palms leads west from Mexico 1 (at Km 85) across the wide, flat arroyo de Santiago, dividing the town into Loma Norte and Loma Sur (North and South Slopes).  Santiago and environs serves the rgion as an important source of palm leaves for making palapa roofs.  Palmeros claim the fan - shaped fronds are best cut during a full moon, as rising sap make palms leaves last longer.  Properly dried and stored, 250 palm leaves equals one carga or load, for which the palmeros receive US $30-50 depending on leaf quality.

Various Tiendas line the town plaza; the town also offers a Pemex station, hotel, supermarket stocked with local fruit and vegetable, post office, telegraph office, church, and the only zoo on the peninsula south of Mexicali.

Among the residents of the small but nicely landscaped Parque Zoológico are a peccart, bear, coyote, fox, monkey, parrots, and ducks.  Some of the animals are Cape Region natives.  The park is open daily 6 a.m. - 6 p.m. in summer, until 5 p.m. the rest of the year.  Admission is free, though donations are gladly accepted.  To bypass the town center and proceed directly to the the zoo, take the left fork just after crossing the dry arroyo near the town entrance, then take the next left fork onto a levee road that curves along the south end of town to the zoo.

Also in town, a small, rustic museum adjacent to the church at the corner of Calzada Misoneros and Calle Victoria contains colonial artifacts and local fossils.  It's open Mon. - Fri. 8 a.m. - 1 p.m.; free admission.

Santiago celebrates its patron saint day, the feast day of St. James, on 25 July.

The dirt road to the zoo continues southwest nine Km (5.5 miles) to the village of Agua Caliente (also known as Los Manantiales), where a hot spring in a nearby canyon (about seven km, four miles west of the village) has been channeled into a concrete tub for recreational purposes.  Camping is permitted in the canyon.  Ask directions to two other hot springs in the area: El Chorro (west of Agua Caliente) and Santa Rita (north).  The network of roads behind Santiago passes through dense thorn forest in some spots and it's easy to get lost unless you kee a compass on hand or a good fix on the sun.  If you can bring along a copy of the Mexican topography may for this area (Santiago 12B34), all the better, each of these locals is clearly marked.  Do not attempt these roads at night.  If you continue south along the sandy road past Agua Caliente, you'll reach the town of Miraflores at 8.7 km (5.4 miles).

At the north end of Santiago, another dirt road leads northwest to Rancho San Dionísio (23.5 km / 14.5 miles), where the Canon San Dionísio approach to Picacho La Laguna begins. 

At Las Cuevas, five km (3.1 miles) northeast of Santiago on Mexico 1 (around Km Marker 93), is the turnoff (east) to La Ribera and the East Cape.

Three km south of Santiago, on Mexico 1, a large painted cement sphere marks the Tropic of Cancer (latitude 23.5' N), south of which you are "in the tropics."  As if to sanctify the crossing, an impressive Guadalupe shrine has been built next to the rather unattractive marker.