Days 7 and 8: San Miguel de Allende

Monday and Tuesday, August 10 and 11: The Chiripa 2009 Summer Buying Trip to Mexico

I have not received any communication about this leg of the trip, so, I'll go by the original plans for inventory buys and share what seems like an impossible list for two days.

The San Miguel de Allende Artisan Market. This is a strip of booths on both sides of a pedestrian walkway, maybe 3 or 4 "blocks" long. Besides local artisans, one can find rugs from Oaxaca and Huichol bead work from Nayarit.

It is at this market where we met Hector Bustamante.

Hector with his wife and daughter at the marketplace booth

His workshop called Luciano creates whimsical figures out of metal. We carry his catrinas and catrins, cats and dogs and angels. Perhaps the most loved piece he sells is the Tree of Life. It brings joy to people.

Other treasures at the market:

Inexpensive and popular blue painted clay figures, suns and boxes.
Coconut masks and coconut heads with bodies.
Tin star and angel ornaments for the coming holiday season.
Jewelry, milagros, Lotteria games . . . and the list goes on.

But there are other stops besides the market for these two short days:

Felix Bautista Ramirez was our first mirror maker.

Our first trip to Felix's was in the back of a pickup truck.

He lives outside the city and is often not reachable by phone. This requires resourcefulness and patience as we track him down to place an order. This time we'll be looking for more mirrors, his painted tin cacti, tin stars, and tin luminaries.

Felix with his wife and a pile of stars for Chiripa.

A second mirror maker, Ricardo Banda who, along with his family create differently styled mirrors that have proven popular in Wisconsin: mirrors with doors, oval highly decorated painted mirrors, as well as more traditional tile mirrors.


Ricardo also manufactures our metal switchplate covers. Maybe there will be something new from this visit.

A short distance from San Miguel de Allende is the city of Dolores Hidalgo. It is home to some colorful talavera pottery workshops.

We shop regularly at Liceagui right on the main drag i.e. bus route. Our supplies are not depleted from our trip here in February, but there are some special requests (a fish sink!) and some holes to fill in inventory.

Beth will make a new stop in Dolores Hidaldo at Chiles y Chiles the factory that makes the chili peppers we found last year at the trade show. It will be fun to see the operations and meet the people who make the colorful peppers that hang from the ceiling at the shop.

I'm hoping Beth and JM have time to stop in the Zocalo for some of the homemade ice cream. It's a special treat to pick out a flavor that we'd never find in the U.S.

With so many stops--not to mention a trip to the bank or money exchange to change travellers checks--those of us back in the US worry that meals are being missed. Rest will come on the bus ride tomorrow!