The Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl story, also known as “Don Goyo” and the sleeping woman, begins in Pre-Hispanic Era.

The legend is about two volcanoes that represent a maiden and a Tlaxcalan warrior. The story begins when the inhabitants of Aztlán started their pilgrimage to found the city of Tenochtitlan, best known as the Aztec people, the great rulers of the Mesoamerican region.

The other peoples who live with them have the obligation to give them offerings as a tribute, a situation for which they are feared and hated.

Tired of being one of the slaves of the Aztecs, the chief of Tlaxcala begins a fight against the Aztecs in order to release the people. This cacique is the father of a beautiful young woman named Iztaccihuatl, she was a princess so beautiful and charming, that the day she is born, the gods spend hours and hours admiring her beauty.

Growing up, the princess meets the bravest warrior of the Tlaxcaltecas, named Popocatépetl, they both look at each other for the first time and fall madly in love.

Popocatepetl talks to the cacique and asks for his daughter’s hand in marriage, and the cacique accepts, but only with the condition that Popocatepetl returns victorious from the battle against the Aztecs.

Two months later, the warriors who returned badly wounded begin to spread the rumor that the brave Popocatepetl has been killed by the Aztec warriors. When Iztaccihuatl finds out about the bad news, she feels as if her heart had broken in a thousand pieces, losing all courage to continue living in this world where she no longer breathes because her great love has died. Neither the prayers of her father, nor all the care of the Tlaxcala sorcerers, nothing makes the princess recover the strength of before and her health begins to worsen every day.

The next morning, she dies from the infinite sadness that she harbors in her chest. Weeks later, Popocatépetl returns, just as she promised, victorious and ready to marry his love Iztaccihuatl, but his happiness turns to tears when he finds out that his beloved lies on a bed of lifeless flowers. .

Oddly enough, the body of the princess remains without signals of putrefaction, as if she were asleep, almost as if she was waiting for the return of her fiancé. Popocatépetl is promoted to the rank of general and orders his warriors to build a monumental altar where he can watch over his beloved princess. Ten slabs of polished stone are placed one on top of the other, so that the beautiful young woman remains as if she were on a pedestal, where Popocatépetl carries her to the top of it and deposits her with great care and love.

After kissing her forehead and bathing her face with her tears, the warrior lights a torch and kneels beside the princess to adore her forever.

Thus, the hours pass that turn into days, the days into weeks, during which time the torch remains lit until winter arrives, and the snow puts out the fire, that same snow that covers their bodies little by little.

Surprisingly, one morning at sunrise, the bodies of Iztaccihuatl and Popocatépetl were turned into volcanoes, they say that by the work of the gods to keep them united for all eternity.

Even today, the inhabitants of Popocatépetl assure that the remains of the lava that emerge from the crater come from the beating of the heart that is still falling in love with the princess (IMAGEN RADIO, 2017).