Qualla: Comala https://qualla.com/comala en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:09 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/e/q/j/comala-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Comala https://qualla.com/comala Comala: Introduction https://qualla.com/comala/ Photo credit MrXYZ9x, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1961, the residents of Comala made a collective decision that still defines their town: they painted it white. Every building, every wall -- white stucco topped with red clay tile roofs. The idea was simple: distinguish Comala from the surrounding communities in the shadow of the Colima Volcano. It worked. Today the Pueblo Blanco, the White Town, draws some 400,000 visitors a year, making it the second most important tourist destination in the state of Colima after the beach resort of Manzanillo. But the whitewash covers layers of history reaching back three thousand years, through Olmec, Nahua, Toltec, and Purepecha cultures, through the Spanish encomienda system, through a divisive religious war, and into a present where coffee plantations and handcraft workshops still anchor the local economy.

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Image: MrXYZ9x | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/e/q/j/comala-wp/9eqj-comala-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Comala: Where Comals Were Made https://qualla.com/comala/ Photo credit Thelmadatter, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name Comala comes from the Nahuatl word comalli -- a flat ceramic cooking surface -- with the suffix -an, meaning "place of." Place of comals. The name is functional, not mythic, and it tells you that this was a settlement defined by what its people produced. The first humans...

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Image: Thelmadatter | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/e/q/j/comala-wp/9eqj-comala-where-comals-were-made.mp3 0:06 2 full Comala: Coffee, Electricity, and a Religious War https://qualla.com/comala/ Photo credit Thelmadatter, CC BY-SA 3.0. Modern Comala began to take shape in 1883, when a German businessman named Arnold Vogel established the municipality's first coffee plantation. Coffee would drive agricultural and industrial development for generations. In 1906, the state of Colima's first electrical plant, calle...

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Image: Thelmadatter | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/e/q/j/comala-wp/9eqj-comala-coffee-electricity-and-a-religious-war.mp3 0:06 3 full Comala: Masks, Baskets, and Volcanic Soil https://qualla.com/comala/ Photo credit Thelmadatter, CC BY-SA 3.0. Agriculture still employs over forty-two percent of Comala's population. Corn, tomatoes, sorghum, coffee, and sugar cane lead the crop list, joined by tomatillos, rice, chili peppers, beans, jicama, limes, mangos, tamarind, avocados, mamey, and guava -- a roster that reads like a...

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Image: Thelmadatter | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/e/q/j/comala-wp/9eqj-comala-masks-baskets-and-volcanic-soil.mp3 0:06 4 full Comala: Haciendas and Lakeside Trails https://qualla.com/comala/ Photo credit Thelmadatter, CC BY-SA 3.0. Beyond the white-walled historic center -- declared a Historic Monument Zone by presidential decree in 1988 -- Comala's attractions spread into the surrounding countryside. The former hacienda of Nogueras, just outside town, belonged to the artist Alejandro Rangel Hidalgo and has...

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Image: Thelmadatter | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/e/q/j/comala-wp/9eqj-comala-haciendas-and-lakeside-trails.mp3 0:06 5 full