The Beauty of Buses

JM normally provides the content for the Chiripa blog, by, since he's off to Mexico I thought I'd do a couple posts with images from the March trip that didn't illustrate the log from that trip. 

Anyone who has been reading this blog knows that we travel by bus throughout Mexico. It is a convenient, efficient, and safe way to travel. This is a typical bus station in a major city.

We see all sorts of travelers and amazing baggage. On this day I noticed a woman getting off a bus carrying a beautiful bouquet of flowers. By the time I could get my camera in gear she was almost out of the picture.

The woman walking behind her saw me and stopped her friend so I could get a better picture.

And then they got me in the picture. And finally, as we were parting ways the woman gave me one of the red roses from her arrangement.

This was all done without words except Gracias.

Off to Mexico

We ended the posts from JM's August journal just in time for the next Chiripa buying trip to Mexico. Affectionately called "The Milk Run," we'll be traveling from Guadalajara to Patzcuaro to San Miguel de Allende to Puebla and on to Oaxaca. We'll visit old friends and check out some new leads.

The long Wisconsin winter should be winding down when we return in early March. Until then you may see sporadic posts but access to computers is not guaranteed where we travel.

These photos were from our trip last February. They all shout MEXICO to me:

Bus: how we get from place to place; an amazing system!

Balloons: every zocalo (central plaza) has a balloon vendor; color and kids!

Babies: lots of them; I wonder if Felix's grandson will be walking!

Buddies: nothing beats a beer break during a grueling day of shopping?

Hasta luego!

Bussing to Guadelara

A post from the log that JM kept on the August 09 buying trip to Mexico for Chiripa. -kl

This morning, as we headed toward the bus terminal, workers were sweeping the streets with long brooms made of bundled twigs and fronds, and people were stretching and taking their morning exercise laps around the Plaza Quiroga.

The bus terminals in Mexico are amazing. Buses are constantly coming and going in a precise and intricate dance. They simultaneously carry thousands of people to hundreds of different destinations. The barkers call out the names in a flat nasal twang: “Morelia, Morelia!” “Uruapan!” “Zitacuaro!” It is an enormously efficient transportation system, from which we could learn much.

Sadly, if you take a first-class bus, you must endure the movies. These are often loud and violent U.S. products, and by the end of an otherwise pleasant and restful trip they can leave you exhausted. These movies, far more than any diplomatic communications, shape the world’s image of the United States. The overall impression is that of a violent, corrupt and degenerate society.


Despite the movie torture en route, we completed the 5-hour trip from Patzcuaro to Guadalajara, via Morelia. You couldn’t describe Guadalajara as quaint or picturesque, although its downtown features magnificent colonial architecture. It is a big, hard-working, blue-collar place. It has plenty of rough edges, but it is not mean. A sincere young taxi driver told us that Mexico City was choked with pollution, traffic, poverty and crime (“todo malo”), but that Guadalajara was much better (“you don’t get robbed here”).



On Sunday afternoon, families and couples are out walking in the downtown (unlike many U.S. cities, which are ghost towns on weekends). Children, in their underwear, are laughing and playing in the fountains. The splashing water and cool mist offer relief from the afternoon heat. --JM August 16, 2009

A "Free" Trip to Mexico

We laugh when people wink and say we get to travel for free. It's true, Chiripa buying trips to Mexico are a business expense. In order to help you, the reader, understand what happens on these trips I'm going to follow the itinerary of my partner Beth who is traveling with JM and KZ right now.

The goal of these trips is to find great Mexican crafts that we can import and share with our customers, both in our brick and mortar shop and online. The beauty of the transactions is in the relationships we build with the artisans. In the next few days I will follow their trip and explain where they are and who they might be visiting on any given day. Real communication from them, as it relates to artisan crafts, will be shared. They aren't traveling with a computer, so, contact will be sporadic, at best.

Today is Tuesday, Aug. 4. I'm writing from Madison, Wisconsin.

I got up at 1:35 a.m. to be able to pick up Beth and crew at her house at 2 a.m. so that they could meet the 2:20 a.m. VanGalder bus at the UW Memorial union. This would put them at O'Hare around 6 a.m. for their flight to Mexico City at 7:45 a.m. They would arrive in Mexico around 11:45 a.m. and catch an airport bus to Puebla. (I think that's about a two hour ride.)

They will stay in downtown Puebla (I'm not sure which hotel) and hit the Artisan Market where they will visit with Miguel at Casa de las Artesanias.


Miguel Parades, his wife Lilia Cruz Ruiz, and their son Daniel have a workshop that makes skeleton figures and nichos with little skeleton scenes. These are very popular at Chiripa. We have requests for larger figures. We're also hoping that Miguel has some Chirstmas ornaments in the works. Whatever Chiripa purchases will probably be neatly boxed and will be carried on to Oaxaca where it will be consolidated with the Oaxacan purchases. (More on that later.)

B, JM, and KZ will have a nice dinner and turn in early, I'm sure. It's been a long travel day! And it's only day 1.

Buses In Mexico

[Continuing journal written by Chiripa partners on a recent buying trip.]

August 23: The Abastos Market

There are a large number of craft-producing villages within a short bus ride of Oaxaca. But to get a bus, you must ordinarily go to the 2nd class bus terminal in the sprawling Abastos Market. Some buses leave from the terminal itself, while others leave from various locations in the market. You learn these locations only by hard experience (you can ask for directions, but will probably get conflicting advice).

In a perverse way, we look forward to our periodic forays into the Abastos Market. The market is fascinating, but it is not easy. It is not a place frequented by the wealthy class. It is a teeming, noisy, dirty place. Dust is everywhere, and loud buses belch fumes into your face until you feel queasy. We always leave somewhat exhausted, sweaty, and abraded as if by sandpaper. Of course, market regulars live in this atmosphere all day, every day.

The government recently constructed a gleaming new 1st-class bus terminal on the other side of town. But the 2nd-class terminal in the Abastos Market has been unchanged in the quarter century that we have known it. It just gets more rundown. And God help you if you need to use the bathroom.

Ancient buses arrive at the terminal through a wasteland of dust (or a sea of mud, in the short rainy season). The potholes are legendary, and get bigger by the year. Swaying buses disappear into them like struggling galleons in a storm-tossed sea, only to climb out again and make slow headway toward port.

The rare first class ride.

August 23: On a 2nd-Class Bus

The U.S. State Department says that you should only take 1st-class buses in Mexico. That may be good advice, especially if you are taking a long trip. But I must admit that I have seldom felt happier, or freer, or safer than on a 2nd-class bus. For one thing, a 2nd-class bus is more interesting. There is also a feeling of humanity, community and courtesy that you will seldom experience in a place like an international airport.

On a 2nd-class bus, there is no pretense or falsehood, and there are no metal detectors or cell phones. The bus is friendly and comfortable, in a worn and homely way. The seats are shabby, and sometimes broken so they lean way back. The seat covers are dark with years of accumulated dust and exhaust, and some of the seats are held together with packing tape.

Some windows are cracked, and frozen in place. If the window is frozen in the shut position, you may get a little hot and stuffy. If open, you may be a little windblown. If the window can be adjusted, you may have to negotiate the adjustment with the person in the seat ahead. But all of these things can be managed.

The seats fill with beautiful, decent and patient people. They sit in the front if they can, in the back if they must. Sturdy middle-aged ladies push down the aisle and drop into their seats, maneuvering big plastic bags and wearing sweaters despite the heat. There are old people with weathered hands and faces, school girls dressed in uniform, Indian women carrying sleeping babies in rebozos, small children smiling shyly, and boisterous young men whistling out the window to buddies on the street.


The adventure starts as you roll out of the terminal, dust everywhere. The bus rocks from side to side, like a ship in heavy seas, as it navigates the enormous potholes at the terminal entrance. The rosary beads, crucifix and holy pictures hanging in the windshield sway this way and that. The bus driver, a sweating and seasoned pro, grinds the gears and hauls at the big wheel – all the while honking the horn, waiving to fellow drivers, and joking with the teenage kid who proudly “rides shotgun” to his right.

Of course, the kid has no shotgun. He just collects fares and serves as a kind of conductor for the journey. As the bus rolls out of the terminal, the kid bangs the metal side and shouts the bus’s destination with the well-rehearsed nasal voice of a street hawker. The bus picks up more passengers -- some standing at the curbside, others chasing the bus with waving arms. On a 2nd-class bus, passengers just climb on without paying. Later, when things have settled down, the kid comes back to collect. The kid always remembers, with unfailing accuracy, who has paid and who hasn’t. Of course, the people would pay even if he didn’t remember.

Looking out of my bus window.

As you pull out of the station, a street vendor or musician may climb onto the bus. The vendor may offer candy, nuts, melon with salsa, or a cream to ease your arthritis. The musician may strum a twangy, well-worn guitar, or render a nasal a cappella version of an old Mexican folk song. In some cases, the seller may have a mental or physical handicap. The bus riders, who are themselves none too affluent, always buy and contribute generously.

The bus, which may have its own name (like “Angelito”) on the front window, stops anywhere and everywhere -- wherever people want to get on or off. We remember one long night ride when groups of faces would appear in the headlights as if from nowhere, the bus would stop, and campesinos would bundle themselves, their babies, and their belongings onto the friendly bus. The bus always accepted them without fear or question.

A Taxi Ride

From August 15, 2008

When we go on buying trips to Mexico (for Chiripa), we do a lot of walking. We also rely on public transportation – buses and taxis. So we have met a lot of taxi drivers. Each taxi driver in Mexico has his own personal style (the taxi driver is always a “he”). Some are middle-aged and courtly, while others are young and macho. Some are talkative, some not. Most have a rosary or religious token hanging from the rear view mirror. Some wear seat belts, but others (perhaps trusting in the Virgin’s protection) only pretend to be buckling their seat belt when they approach a police car.

Most taxi drivers prefer Mexican traditional or pop music on the radio. But you may hear classical or New Age music, or even Johnnie cash singing “Your Own Personal Jesus.” Many taxi drivers have been in the U.S., but most say they prefer Mexico. As one driver told us on this trip, Mexico is “más bonito” (more beautiful) and “más tranquilo” (more tranquil) than Aurora, Illinois, and you don’t have to spend so much time putting coats on and off.

Mexican taxi drivers usually know exactly how to get where you want to go, (they sometimes they take disconcerting shortcuts that make you wonder, if only for a moment, whether you are being kidnapped). But taxi drivers occasionally have trouble locating the obscure and unmarked family workshops that Chiripa seeks out.

In Guadalajara, we asked our young taxi driver to get us back to our somewhat low-profile downtown hotel during rush hour. He gave the impression that he knew where it was, and we started on our way. We passed, among other things, the statue dedicated to the “Niños heroes” (child heroes) – the young Mexico City military cadets who fought to the death against the invading U.S. Army in 1846, while the main Mexican army abandoned the city. Every Mexican city has a street named “Niños Heroes.” In the Mexican-American War, the U.S. forced Mexico to cede much of its northern territory (including Texas, California, Utah, Colorado, and most of New Mexico and Arizona).

The Guadalajara taxi driver seemed to have a plan, and was making good headway. But eventually he admitted that he didn’t know exactly where our hotel was located. I knew we were in trouble when he asked me which way to go. We were actually pretty close, but on the wrong side of the central plaza, and the downtown streets were choked with traffic. Getting to the other side took, well, a long time....

We crept along -- measuring our progress in feet, not blocks. The young driver maintained a cheerful demeanor, but was sweating with anxiety. We passed the glorious cathedral, as well as the famous hotel established in 1610 (our pace gave us plenty of time to take in the sites). We could easily have made faster progress on foot, but the taxi driver was determined and we didn’t have the heart to stop him short of his goal. As the sun was going down, we finally arrived. The taxi driver beamed, and we paid him extra for his trouble.

[Note: See post on March 10, 2008 for a description of the hotel Chiripa partners were trying to find.]