Dining Room with a View

From the log kept by JM on the August 2010 Chiripa buying trip to Mexico.

August 21, 2010. It seemed like a fine morning to eat at the Hotel de la Basilica. The hotel, which sits on a hill in the center of Patzcuaro, is named for the basilica that sits just across the street. The basilica was constructed from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Its huge bells ring out across the city, a soulful reminder to faithful and unfaithful alike.

The hotel dining room offers splendid views over a jumble of red-tiled roofs (reminiscent of hill towns in Italy) to the lake and mountains beyond. Morning clouds hang half-way up the mountains. The dining room is small, but we have our choice of tables because tourists are scarce these days. The hot coffee is delicious on a cool morning.

 A lovely table setting features hand-made ceramic plates from the nearby village of Capula. (Chiripa has just a few of these very same plates which are made with a lead-free glaze.) The centerpiece is a colorful, handmade castle of firecrackers (not available at Chiripa), of the sort commonly put to use at fiestas here. The centerpiece also includes hand-woven straw ornaments from the nearby town of Tzintzuntzan (which we plan to visit after breakfast). Heavy, hand-blown glassware and hand-formed ceramic mugs complete the table setting.

In Patzcuaro, hand-woven table linens are also a specialty. Men weave the fabric on heavy wooden looms. Skilled seamstresses then fashion the fabric into napkins, placemats and tablecloths. At Chiripa you can find Patzcuaro table linens in a riot of bright colors. They look great with hand-made ceramic plates from Capula and hand-blown glassware from Tlaquepaque! Enjoy the colors, textures and hand-made character of Mexico in your home.

Beautiful, But Sad

From the log kept by JM on the August 2010 Chiripa buying trip to Mexico.

August 20, 2010. We arrived in the village of Santa Clara del Cobre after the close of it's annual Copper Fair. The craftsmen of Santa Clara create some of the finest hand-hammered copper in the world, and each year they display their very best work at the copper Fair.

Some of the pieces from the fair were still on display, and they were as stunning as in the past years. But this year, according to frequent prize winner Roberto Castro, the annual fair was muy triste (very sad). The Mexican economy is in trouble, and attendance at the fair was poor.

That was costly and disappointing for the artisans who risked much of their annual livelihood to create prize-winning pieces for the exhibition. An artisan may spend months creating a single piece. Copper (from scrap) is repeatedly fired, water-cooled and hammered into shape (the finest pieces are created from a single piece of metal). The artisan then works carefully, with smaller specialized hammers, to bring out the surface design and characteristic red glow of the finished metal. In the hands of a skilled artisan, the result is a glorious work of museum-quality art. The elegant final shape will last for hundreds of years.

Although we missed the Copper Fair this year we did manage to bring home some fine copper pieces. At Chiripa, you can find a wide selection of hand-hammered copper to suit your taste and budget. Your purchases help preserve the copper craft in Santa Clara del Cobre.

Old and Eccentric

From the log JM kept on the August 2010 Chiripa buying trip to Mexico.

August 19, 2010.  The old Hotel de los Escudos, in the center of Pazcuaro, is not what you would call luxurious. But it is clean and economical ($29 a night at this time of year). It is also interesting, in an eccentric and centuries-old sort of way. The desk staff remembers us, and it has a handy location right on the serene Plaza de Vasco Quiroga. It has big pine pillars and beams, and limestone steps indented and worn smooth by centuries of foot traffic. There is no security to speak of, but it feels comfortable and safe. So it suits us, and we keep coming back. 

Morning light hits Los Escudos on a prior trip. 

Note: the zocalo has not been rebuilt.

This time we stayed in the hotel “annex,” which has a lobby with a stuffed deer and a picture of the plaza covered with snow on July 16, 1996. Our interior room was almost too quiet, except for the rooftop bells that reminded us of the time every 15 minutes. In the corner of the room was a round brick fireplace that might be as old as the hotel. Patzcuaro nights can get cold, and firewood is provided. The blackened brick in the fire chamber suggested that the fireplace has seen plenty of use, but we paused when we saw that the brick on the outside of the fireplace was also blackened.

The ceiling, resting on heavy pine beams, towered 20 feet above us. The bathroom looked like a quaint little 10-ft. tall house within the 20-ft. tall room. It had brick and stucco walls, a pine door, and pine-encased semi-transparent windows that could swing open. Like many hotel bathrooms in Mexico, it was raised 8 inches above the bedroom floor. In the middle of the night, you must remember to step up on your way in (and down on your way out) or you will come to a bad end.

Once you have negotiated the step and entered the little house-bathroom, you must close the creaky pine door. The door does not shut unless you pull hard, and then it slams (waking your spouse). It is pitch black inside, so you try to find the light switch. The light shines through the window into your spouse’s (now open) eyes. If you are male, you raise the toilet seat, but it does not stay up by itself. You improvise by addressing the toilet from the side, and holding the seat up with your knee. If you are lucky, you finish the operation before the seat slips from your knee and slams down with a loud slap.

When you finish in the bathroom, you turn out the light, force open the creaky door with your shoulder, remember to step down, and grope your way back to bed. You misjudge a bit, and curse when you slam into the bed with your shin. You eventually get back to sleep, but your spouse will be awake for several hours….    

"Going green" in the interior lobby at Los Escudos.

A Bit of Luck in Tonala

From JM's August 2010 log of the Chiripa buying trip to Mexico.

August 17, 2010. We have never had much luck in Tonala. The town on the outskirts of Guadalajara is reputed to be a major center of craft production. But we have always found it frustrating. There are a lot of workshops, but much of the production we've been able to find is kitchy grade B stuff--not the high quality traditional crafts that we seek.

Today we decided to give it one more try. We had a specific mission in mind: to find the workshop that creates interesting metal work under the name of Marco Polo Designs (we had failed to find it once before). 

The taxi dripped us on Alfereros street, where we had heard the workshop was located. But Alfereros is not a continuous street. It stops, changes names, travels several crooked blocks under its new alias, and then resumes liife under its original name. The house numbers follow no discernible order, and seem to be assigned by a random number generator.

Despite these difficulties, we persisted. Finally, after asking several friendly pedestrians and shopkeepers, and consulting with a helpful policeman, we found the little yellow house and workshop at Alfereros #8. We rang the bell, but there was no answer. Again . . . No response. Once more . . .  Nothing. It looked like yet another defeat in Tonala.

But we weren't quite ready to quit. After polking around the back streets for another hour or so, we returned One more time to Alfereros #8. This time the door opened, and a friendly figure emerged. He smiled when he saw us, and waved us in.

We ordered some really nice luminaries (table and wall), a big dancing Catrina skeleton, and other good metal pieces, including some clever geckos to climb all over your walls. Tonala is still hard to figure out, but it may be growing on us.

Farewell to a Friend

From the log JM kept on the August 2010 Chiripa buying trip to Mexico.

"I am so glad to see you, but I have some very bad news." We held our breath, waiting for what Tina would tell us: "My husband Carlos has died."

 Carlos and Tina in February, 2010.

It was just this past February when Carlos had drawn us a big glass of tequila from the barrel in the back room. (Carlos had received the barrel in payment from a small tequila maker who could not afford to pay cash for the special hand-blown glass bottles that Carlos had made for him.) When we protested that the glass was too big, Carlos just smiled and said "the tap closes slowly . . ."  We laughed, and he told us about the avocado trees that he was planting on their little farm. He hoped to sell the avocados to provide retirement income.

On a hot afternoon just one month later, Carlos was watering the young avocado trees when he suffered a stroke. He wanted to clean up before going to the hospital, but he naver made it. Carlos was gone, and Tina is left to tend the trees herself.

Tina and Carlos were maried for 43 years. As newlyweds they moved to Tlaquepaque to live in his mother's house, just across the street from the old Rufugio monastery. For many years, the house served as glass-blowing workshop, retail store and residence. 

Tina misses Carlos "more each day." But at least for now, she bravely carries on the family glassware business. Chiripa is proud to be one of her loyal customers.

Farewell, Carlos.

Oaxaca Parade

JM normally provides the content for the Chiripa blog, but, since he's just back from Mexico I thought I'd do another post with images from the March trip that didn't illustrate the log from that trip. 

I make it a point to visit the English language bookstore in Oaxaca to get ideas for books we might carry at Chiripa. One late afternoon in March I was casually browsing the shelves when I heard a loud commotion outside the window. Looking out I saw a parade in the making. 

The "band" stopped right by my window and the young women in traditional Oaxacan dress started dancing. 

Just as quickly as it had started they moved on down the street delighting the crowds outside.

The workers in the bookstore just kind of shrugged when asked about the reason for the parade. It had something to do with education, but they weren't really sure.  

It was fun, colorful, and unexpected.  A perfect Chiripa (happy accident) for me.

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.