Men are strange creatures. On the hazy fumes of a drunken evening, they will compete over anything: V8 vs. V6 engines, grill surface area, lawn stripes and, after sufficient cerveza, even personal appendage metrics.

But in a brightly lit taquería, when the conversation behind me turned to hammocks, I couldn’t help overhearing. For research purposes, obviously.

‘Handwoven cotton.Totally breathes.’

‘Oh yeah? So does my T-shirt, hermano. Doesn’t mean I sleep in the backyard.’

That was enough to pique my curiosity. From that day on, the tiny workshop I passed each morning refused to remain background scenery: thick brick walls, shadowed interiors, sudden bursts of color.

Living room hammock workshop

It was here, deep in the barrio of San Jose, just minutes from the tourist-trodden historic center of Campeche that I found Reene Bera, a third-generation hamaquero. On a pleasant midweek morning, he invited me into his home where the living room and workshop blur into one.

Inside, time settles gently, patient beside the seasoned craftsman.

Reene worked seated within the contemplative geometry of his craft, resting in a half-finished hammock as he wove. Slender and soft-spoken, his face shaped more by decades of concentration than hardship. His hands are the stars: lean, muscular and terrifyingly precise.

Under a wooden bench lay Perrito, the workshop’s unofficial quality-control supervisor asleep with stoic commitment. He did not stir at the percussive clack of the frame nor at my arrival, suggesting either supreme trust in the craft or a lifetime immunity to Mexico’s urban soundtrack.

‘If these walls could talk,’ Reene said with a shy smile, ‘they would tell you how many mistakes live here.’

He wasn’t talking about the house, but the craft. Within those four walls lay years of invisible apprenticeship: broken threads, misjudged tensions, errors that forged mastery.

Third-generation hammock-maker

His journey wasn’t linear. Hammock weaving had been second nature to his grandfather in Yucatan. As a child, Reene roamed the workshop, absorbing the rhythm of the craft without knowing he was learning. Outside, he played football in the street with a rag ball like the other boys; inside, thread and tension entered his hands.

Yet the inheritance skipped a beat. His grandfather later dedicated himself to selling hammocks rather than weaving them and Reene remained an observer. Close enough to understand the idea, distant enough to forget its language. Life carried him elsewhere until necessity forced his hand.

‘When something is not practiced, it is forgotten,’ he admitted. ‘You have the idea but you forget it. Life itself takes you to different circumstances.’

He relearned the trade not through lineage alone but through the blunt insistence of survival when other doors slammed shut.

I watched him work. The labor is a collection of small punishing repetitions: shoulders pivot taut, back braces constant, feet anchor as knots pull vise-tight. Too loose, it sags. Too tight and it snaps like haste. 

‘Was it a calling?’ I asked. ‘Something in the blood?’

Reene let out a cackle. ‘I was broke,’ he said. ‘I had no choice.’

Refreshing honesty. While we romanticize a dying art, Reene sees livelihood. He returned to the loom twenty-five years ago when options vanished. Destiny, often, is survival’s last knot.

Patience is a virtue

Today, he works at a pace that would alarm a factory foreman. A full-time weaver might finish one in a week; Reene, balancing custom orders and repairs, stretches the process over months.

For those with great skill a hammock takes a week,’ he explained. ‘In my case, I do it little by little. It can take several months because I only dedicate a little time.’

‘The work is not compensated,’ he said plainly, hands dancing on. ‘You cannot charge for every hour, every knot or no one in Mexico could afford sleep.’

He broke down the math.To make a single high-quality nylon hammock requires roughly twenty rolls of thread. At thirty-five pesos each, materials alone approach seven hundred pesos. Add the cowhide spreader bar, costing around two thousand pesos, weeks of labor, and the arithmetic becomes sobering.

Factory hammocks sell for pennies. His, built to last decades, struggle to find buyers who understand their value.

‘The cost does not match the labor,’ he sighed. ‘If I charged minimum wage for the days I spend, the price would be higher than buying a new one.’

Handmade’s economic tragedy is palpable. Yet he speaks without bitterness.

‘They’re good,’ he said of factory models. ‘They cover a social need. In the southeast heat, if you have low resources, you buy the inexpensive version. It will last a few years, not a lifetime, but it covers the need.’

Lifespans tell the truth: machine-made nylon yields after years in sun and strain; Reene’s cotton can last thirty; his handwoven nylon, sixty.

Consequently, he has become a custodian more than a salesman favoring repairs to extend a hammock’s life. People bring him worn slings from Mérida, Ciudad del Carmen, even Chetumal.

‘I check the wire to see if it breaks,’ he said. ‘I look at the age of the hammock. I tell them if it is worth saving.’ Nothing goes to waste. ‘The important thing,’ he added, ‘is that it’s enjoyed and shared. A hammock is for family.’

In southeastern Mexico’s punishing heat, it is no boho patio accessory. It is a biological necessity, strung low to capture moving air.

‘I cannot afford to be an artist,’ he laughed. ‘It takes too much time and they won’t pay for it. I copy what works. I look for weight balance, knot durability, and reliable suspension. Beauty in equilibrium.’

He respects objects fiercely, buying fellow artisans’ wares to study their ingenuity. ‘Can this knot withstand the future with the same pride as designed?’ he asks himself.

A dying art?

Few hamaqueros remain. Cities and quick cash lure younger generations away from the loom. Yet Reene shrugs off predictions of extinction. He still goes door-to-door offering repairs, relying on word of mouth that travels faster than traffic.

‘They recognize me,’ he said. ‘Friends tell friends. It is beautiful work.’

‘I’m sure they’ll endure,’ he added, eyes fixed on the threads. ‘It is not the same to sleep in a bed as to sleep in a hammock. You don’t take your bed out to the patio to refresh yourself. You take out a hammock.’

As long as it is hot, he believes, people will need them.

As I left, the midday heat pressed against the streets like a physical weight. Inside, the air remained cool, dense with patience. A hammock holds more than a body: it holds the sweat of the maker, a grandfather’s memory and the hard math of survival… all tied together, one deliberate knot at a time.

Published or Updated on: March 10, 2026 by Paolo Ferrari © 2026. Photographs © 2026 Florence Voller.

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Alvin Starkman, M.A., J.D.

Last year I participated in a panel discussion in Oaxaca about a new book entitled La E del Mezcal: Exportación, by Dra. Blanca Esther Salvador Martínez. While the other panelists essentially praised the author for writing such an important book and explained how it thoroughly covered all the bases regarding the subject matter, I took a different approach. I explained how the export of mezcal positively impacts virtually every aspect of the Oaxacan economy. This piece reviews and expands on what I discussed at the book presentation.

Oaxaca is one of the poorest states in the country. We have agriculture and tourism, and little if anything else. Factories for export products are virtually non-existent. We’ve always had significant production of tomatoes, mangoes, black beans, avocados, etc., for both domestic consumption and for export, and so growing fruits and vegetables has kept the economy humming, at least within the context of its standing relative to the rest of Mexico.

But tourism is another story. It is characterized by peaks and valleys. Many readers will recall what happened in 2006, when as a result of severe social unrest, tourism dipped to pretty well nothing. And then between in 2020 and 2022, this time because of COVID, once again tourism was essentially absent. Next year, or the following year, or in five years, once again tourism will likely take a hit.

Both the US State Department and journalists often warn prospective visitors against traveling to Oaxaca. I even recall about three years ago seeing a story on the international cable channel Al Jazeera about fires blazing at the Huitzo toll booth, which is about an hour’s drive north of the city of Oaxaca. The underlying message was clear: it’s too dangerous to visit Oaxaca. But mezcal tourism appears oblivious to the ravages of fearmongering.

For the past dozen or so years, I’ve been working on a part-time basis teaching visitors to Oaxaca about mezcal production stages and processes. I also work with documentary film production companies, photographers, and most importantly with individuals and groups interested in exporting mezcal. Hence, in the panel discussion I stressed the work done by Dra. Salvador in fostering the state’s economic growth through assisting those with plans for the export of mezcal. Between the two of us, we have worked with people who now have their own export brands and who are importing the spirit to the US, to Canada, to the UK, to Australia, to Europe, etc. And so, we find that with every pallet of mezcal that leaves Oaxaca, the state’s economy is bolstered. And this refers to much more that the sale of raw material (i.e. the heart of the plant, or piña as it is traditionally termed). Sure, some newbies to the spirit will decide it’s not for them. But the lion’s share will be enthralled with it, some even deciding to jump into the business of mezcal.

It doesn’t matter if the visitor to Oaxaca wants to visit the palenque (distillery) of his new favorite agave spirit, to photograph, to film, or to pursue an export project; they will be staying in a city lodging, be it Quinta Real, Holiday Inn Express, or a B & B or airbnb. And they’ll be dropping pesos at eateries both in the city and in the villages; high end, middle-of-the-road, as well as street food and at market stands. This all translates to amelioration of the Oaxacan economy.

But there is so much more! While, believe it or not, some mezcal tour visitors have no idea about the archaeological sites, the craft villages, the push towards ecotourism, the fact that the city is the country’s mecca for cuisine with its cooking schools—Casa Oaxaca, Los Danzantes, and more—upon arrival they do begin to realize the state’s diversity of offerings.

The arts scene has hugely capitalized upon the mezcal boom. More than two decades ago, our goddaughter Lucina (then only six years old), from the terracotta clay pottery village of San Marcos Tlapazola, began making small mezcal drinking cups with a face on one side and an agave on the other. At the time such an item was unknown. Today, several woman from that village are marketing those little vessels. Lucina’s mother, a talented craftswoman in her own right, is continually inventing other clay products with an agave motif. While she strives to stay one step ahead of the village competitors, others nevertheless copy. The economic lot of the village has improved over the past decade or so, by leaps and bounds, due to the interest in anything related to mezcal and agave.

When tourism dropped dramatically as a consequence of COVID, and I witnessed many of my friends in other craft villages suffering, I encouraged them to produce craft items with mezcal and agave designs. A family in the woolen rug village of Teotitlán del Valle is now making tapestries with a palenquero working his horse with the tahona (stone crushing wheel). Another family in the carved wooden figure (alebrije) village of San Martín Tilcajete is now making similar themed engravings, as well as solid wooden plaques each with a different species of agave pictured.

A friend who hand-forges knives and machetes out of recycled metals, now engraves them with, once again, agave and mezcal motifs. At my request, one of the Aguilar sisters known for their handmade and painted clay figures, now makes figures of Mayahuel, the pre-Hispanic goddess of agave. She is pictured with large breasts and/or rabbits at her feet, the way we see her represented elsewhere. One of the candle makers, once again in Teotitlán del Valle, handmakes a series of candles, each featuring a different species of agave. Several years ago, I encouraged a family of artisans in the cotton textile village of Santo Tomás Jalieza to make table runners with agaves complete with quiotes extending upwards. The wife complied with my request, only to add to the design by including hummingbirds sucking at the flowers on the stalk. In each of the foregoing cases, the mezcal boom has made a positive impact on the economic lives of not only those particular villagers, but others who have realized that a new segment of the tourist population will buy, not the usual craft items, but rather anything related to agave spirits.

A dramatic change is evident in the nature of the art produced in the engravings workshops on Calle Porfirio Díaz and more generally in the works on display for sale in the open air downtown market known as Parque Labastida. One now sees roughly a quarter of the art being offered for sale featuring, yes, agave and mezcal-themed graphics, oils, and water colors.

The agave distillate boom is directly resulting in repairing village and secondary highway roads, building gas stations, constructing schools and increasing the compliment of their teachers, building village water filtration plants, and giving children a chance to improve their education. Previously, many teens, especially males, left their homes for better financial opportunities in Mexico City, California and Texas. Today their labor is needed in making and marketing mezcal in more cost-effective and environmentally friendly ways.

A brother and a sister from Rancho Blanco Güilá each recently graduated from college with a degree in civil engineering, their families being able to fund their higher education using the extra disposable income derived from the sale of the family’s mezcal production. They are both assisting their family to improve their methods of making mezcal, and in fact has recently achieved certification for their own palenques and respective brands. Improved education means improving opportunities to realize dreams.

We don’t know what the future will bring in terms of the continued growth, or not, in Oaxaca’s agave distillate industry. However, with more children now getting a college education, if the industry begins to falter, those youths will have their education upon which to fall back. Two decades ago they would have been relegated to subsistence paying jobs. For the benefit of the state of Oaxaca, we can just hope that the current trajectory continues.

Published or Updated on: June 25, 2024 by Alvin Starkman © 2024.

The post Why is Mezcal so important to the future of Oaxaca? appeared first on MexConnect.

Photo gallery: Women potters lead the way in Oaxaca

A great deal of Oaxaca’s charm is the appearance of a timeless culture, even in the face of sprawling modernization. Its strong handcraft tradition reinforces this notion, and at first glance, it looks like all is done just like it was a hundred years ago. But there has been important innovation, with a number of women leading the way.

The innovation has been a shift from purely utilitarian items to more decorative ones. This started around the mid-20^thcentury, when the state’s tourism industry took off. The creation of new ceramic forms would be important no matter who was behind it, but it is even more fascinating when you take into consideration the expectations for women in traditional rural families, especially 60+ years ago.

Women of those past generations were not raised to think of themselves as individuals to “find their own way in the world.” Their identities were that of their families, first with their parents, then with their husbands and children. Any kind of work they did was to support the family. Girls started working at a very early age, not only undertaking household chores but as part of family businesses as well. For ceramic families this means that most girls had their hands in clay before they were even 10 years old.

Girls married early—by age 18 and sometimes as early as 14/15—with their own children coming soon thereafter. Their worlds were limited to their homes and hometowns, with occasional trips to a larger town or city for selling and shopping. In the 21^st century, such expectations have become less absolute, especially for those who live in less-isolated areas. But the more rural the area, the less life has changed.

With this in mind, the achievements of women like Doña Rosa, Teodora Blanco Nuñez and Josefina Aguilar are extremely important because they took advantage of what their lives had to offer and then reached beyond its confines. Their generations and those that followed have established new pottery forms with important economic and cultural benefits. Their successes have also meant a change in cultural and power structures among men and women in these communities.

The two main types of decorative work they developed have been figurines, especially those of rural women and their lives, and decorative versions of pots, plates, jars, and other utilitarian items. The new pieces have conserved most of the old techniques, forms and decorative motifs, but have taken them to another level. Pieces are molded by hand without a potters’ wheel, using few, if any, molds. Colors are applied with clay slips or ground minerals; these and the clay base are all found locally. Most pieces are still fired with wood, in brick or pit kilns. Sometimes, large, or complicated pieces are fired in gas-powered kilns.

I do not mean to say that these women and their families have coordinated their efforts to change Oaxacan pottery. It is rare for artisan families to share techniques and designs. However, as soon as someone has success with an innovation, others immediately copy it, with real artisans reworking the innovation in their own way.

The following women have been chosen because all started out by making traditional utilitarian wares as children in their hometowns in the central valleys of Oaxaca. All saw the possibilities that tourism presented for their crafts and had the talent to create new and exceptionally fine work.

The legacy of Doña Rosa

The first of these women is Rosa Real Mateo de Nieto, known simply as Doña Rosa. Born in the early 20^th century, she learned how to make the barro negro (black clay) pottery of San Bartolo Coyotepec. This pottery is distinct because of the clay mined near the town, which originally was used for utilitarian objects, especially storage containers for mezcal and other liquids. The clay was fired to a matte gray, but, in the 1950s, Doña Rosa found that if she rubbed clay surfaces with a smooth stone (a technique called burnishing), the fired piece came out a shiny black instead of a dull gray. However, water and other liquids would seep through the pottery.

Such pieces lost their original purpose, but their captivating look made them a natural for decorative versions of such wares, the range of which expanded over time into all kinds of decorative objects, from plates and figures to lamp bases and more. Her work was a success in the tourist and collectors’ markets, making her workshop a destination for major collectors and even US president Jimmy Carter.

The maestra died in 1980, but not before the entire town took notice and began producing their own shiny black pottery items. A number of families, such as the Pedros, have also become famous and have even used barro negro in murals and other art forms. Today, when you enter San Bartolo, you are immediately surrounded by stores selling such wares. Even Oaxaca State museum of popular art, MEAPO, is located here instead of the city of Oaxaca.

Doña Rosa’s family still makes the pottery the traditional way, on the same property where the maestra lived, a couple of blocks from the main square (where almost all the other workshops and stores are). Only a sign on the main road indicates where the workshop is.

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Another important pottery town in this region is Santa María Atzompa, just to the northwest of the city of Oaxaca. The area has been a pottery center for millennia, with pottery from there found at the Monte Alban archeological site. Its most traditional pottery is a green glaze cookware that developed in the colonial period and continues to be important.  However, it is also home to several innovative women potters, each with distinctive styles.

Dolores Porras

Dolores Porras began working in clay at age 13 making cazuelas (similar to casseroles) and other cookware. She married at age 18 and raised nine children while making pottery six days a week. She worked with her husband until his death in 2002. She molded everything, and he was in charge of firing and selling. This means that she was the innovator—with one exception. The couple jointly developed a two-step firing process to allow for the creation of multiple colors.

One unusual aspect of Porras’s career was that she worked for a time with Teodora Blanco (see below). As was a common practice at the time, Blanco signed a number of Porras’s pieces as her own. Porras learned from Blanco before going her own way. While Porras does make some highly decorated female figures (like those Blanco made famous), it is not the focus of her work. Her innovation has been to decorate otherwise utilitarian pieces in distinctive ways, such as adding animal feet to flowerpots and painting or molding faces onto plates. The motifs that appear on her pieces also include various flowers, mermaids, iguanas, fish, and birds. These motifs may be painted and/or molded onto the main body.

Eventually, her work caught the attention of noted folk art promoter, Roberto Donis, who put in an order for 20 of her pots. Her old employer, Teodora Blanco, then followed, buying planters with turtle feet to resell. In 1980, Porras’s work started to be shown in museums in Mexico and the United States. The Hotel Las Golondrinas in the historic center of Oaxaca has a significant collection of her work, which appears in a 2010 documentary created by artist and university ceramics professor Michael Peed.

Teodora Blanco Nuñez

Teodora Blanco Nuñez began working Atzompa’s green glazed pottery working like her mother and grandmother did. However, her work stood out early for its decorative details in the markets of Oaxaca city. In the 1970s, it caught the attention of a foreign tourist, who became her patron and encouraged her to experiment.

This allowed Blanco to move on from single-color glazed pottery to that using the natural colors of the local clay around Santa Maria Atzompa, in particular beige with reddish-orange accents. Blanco eventually became famous for the creation of female figurines depicting rural life, which she called muñecas (dolls). These figurines host rich decorative details made with bits of clay formed into flowers and other patterns pressed onto the main body. She also developed animal figures doing human activities, such as playing a musical instrument. Her work came to the attention of major folk-art collectors, including Nelson Rockefeller, and won numerous Mexican and international awards. Her family has since taken over, continuing the concepts she created, and adding their own touches.

Angélica Delfina Vásquez Cruz

Arden Rothstein of Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art calls Angélica Delfina Vásquez Cruz a “deeply spiritual and reflective woman whose creative work and philosophy are inspiring.”

She learned how to make toys and utilitarian wares from her parents, who had ventured into some more decorative work. However, Angelica’s decorating ideas included the faces and hands of witches, gnomes, and other creatures in children’s stories that parents told to get them to behave. Her parents did not like this particular style, convinced it would never sell.

She married at age 18, and quickly had four children. Unfortunately, she was abandoned and forced to live with her in-laws, fighting an uphill battle to be credited for the work she did. These experiences made her a staunch supporter of women’s rights. She has created works that reflect the struggles of women, especially those who go against convention or assert themselves.

On the surface, much of her work appears much like the other two-tone, beige and orange work that dominates decorative pottery here. You need to look closer at her more complicated pieces to see elements that generally do not appear in the work of others. Among the virgins, angels, animals and flowers that appear fairly universally, you will also find occasional gnomes, witches and fantastic creatures called naguals, along with skeletons and images of people from Mexico’s history. She is also an ardent feminist, so you will also find pieces that talk about women’s struggles of being a mother, wife, and artist. She has made large and extremely complicated pieces, including altars and scenes, which can run up to 25,000 pesos because they require months of work.

Museums in the United States, Mexico, and Europe have invited her to exhibit, and she has been recognized by the Banamex Foundation as one of its Grand Masters of Mexican Folk Art.

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The domination of female figures continues to the south of the city of Oaxaca to Ocotlán de Morelos. Although an important regional handcraft and art center, its center has not yet been overrun with tourists and tourism infrastructure. However, ask anyone here where the houses of Josefina and Guillermina Aguilar are and you will immediately be steered toward a block near the Hotel Real de Ocotlán.

Josefina and Guillermina Aguilar

They are two of four sisters who work in pottery. All began with their parents making angels and candleholders for altars and religious events. Their mother, Isaura, had the idea of making female figurines depicting traditional life, but she died in 1969 at only 44 years of age. It fell on Josefina to take her mother’s idea, expand it to all kinds of figures, and make them famous. Her success brought the others into the work, with Josefina and Guillermina the most recognized.

Generations later, and it is a family tradition. Every generation participates, including their spouses as they come into the fold. Although men are involved in production, women still dominate thematically and in design. The entire family’s work has been collected by many cultural institutions and serious private collectors. It is some of the most artistic of the ceramic figurines of Oaxaca’s Central Valleys as they not only depict basic aspects of traditional rural life, many also make subtle, and not-so-subtle, statements promoting traditional values. Body types vary, along with depictions of more modern life now. Perhaps most importantly, faces show a wide range of expression.

Sara Ernestina García Mendoza

One honorable mention here is the promising work of Sara Ernestina García Mendoza of San Antonino Castillo Velasco. Garcia comes from a well-known ceramicist family, but her work has stood out with the creation of hybrid woman-plant figures. She and the family are heavily attached to the earth from which they get their clay, providing a strong philosophical base for the figures. Although young, she has already been recognized with the National Ceramics Prize in 2019 in Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, and her work is strongly promoted by the Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art organization in New York.

Traditional Oaxacan pottery developed to meet basic needs: storage, cooking, and the like. Any decorative aspects were secondary. The quality of the clay and millennia of experience made towns like San Bartolo Coyotepec, Santa Maria Atzompa and Ocotlán de Morelos important pottery producing towns. Clay is in the blood. The rise of tourism, however, has allowed for a level of creativity that was probably never possible before.

Tourism and collecting provide the economic incentive, but it is these women’s own drive, creativity and ability that takes their world around them and interprets it into forms that speak to those outside. Despite the restrictions that traditional life can put on women, these creators found a voice through their clay to rise above the circumstances into which they were born… while still taking care of children and other family duties. Because of this, innovative pottery in central Oaxaca is heavily feminine, whether or not men take part in its production. These women not only benefited their families, but also their communities as well. While the preservation of traditional utilitarian wares is important, “dolls” and other collectives serve to maintain the dominance of these communities for decades, if not centuries, to come.

• Special thanks to Arden Rothstein and Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art for their help.

Related MexConnect articles

• Women potters of San Marcos Tlapazola, Oaxaca (Alvin Starkman)
• Mexican Folk Art from Oaxacan Artist Families (review of book by Arden Aibel and Anya Leah Rothstein)
• Mexico’s Mezcal Monkey: collectible ceramic folk art from Oaxaca (Alvin Starkman)
• Did you know? Oaxaca is the most culturally diverse state in Mexico (Tony Burton)

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A Voice from Oaxaca

Photo Gallery: Armando Lozano Ramirez, master sculptor and jeweler

Some 30 years ago, a youthful 27-year-old acquired a piece of machinery by chance. Not knowing exactly what to do with it, or how it could somehow become a positive factor in his life, he took a gamble and purchased some modest tools and metal. Armando Lozano Ramírez was then living in Puerto Vallarta, at a time and within an environment where a rich crafts tradition had been emerging. It was within this context that he began experimenting with then innovative techniques, out of necessity using one of the more affordable precious metals… bronze.

Today, entering the combined home, workshop and gallery of Maestro Lozano, one cannot help but be stunned by both the diversity and uniqueness of his work in terms of form, function and size. It is tucked away just off the main highway running through San Bartolo Coyotepec, a short drive from Oaxaca.

Entrancing best describes the overall impression when viewing his exceptional art: jewelry and sculpture, handcrafted in bronze with acid-induced hews of aquamarine accenting most pieces. The intricacy of each one-of-a-kind design, with not only pre-Hispanic but also African influences is remarkable, perhaps surprising given that we’re in the midst of a Zapotec cultural tradition perceived to be manifest in works of iron and silver, stone, clay and wood.

Apart from the foregoing historical and contemporary sources, Maestro Lozano receives his inspiration musing through his daily walks and bicycle rides that characterize his early morning ritual, or otherwise through quiet contemplation and meditation. When his creative forces somehow manage to escape through a lack of discipline, going out and viewing a film sometimes spurs their return.

Armando’s financial fortunes are at times similarly fleeting, fluctuating with seasonal tourism and his ability to attract patrons. While he is sometimes out of state doing expositions and workshops, it’s his home sales upon which he primarily relies for his livelihood, without displaying his works in downtown shops and galleries.

Whether you’re greeted by the Gran Maestro himself, his son who carries on the tradition, or his wife whose paintings and etchings grace the walls of the studio, one cannot help but be impressed by the overall humility. The welcome may at first appear muted, but within seconds the warmth of the family draws you in. Each piece is marked with a code on the back, referencing a price that must be looked up, easily enough. This means of “marketing” might appear to signify lofty pricing, but in fact the opposite is the case. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the affordability of such tasteful and functional original works of art, whether your interest is in a thought-provoking sculpture to adorn a coffee table or mantle, a necklace, pendant, bracelet or earrings.

Armando Lozano Ramírez,
Independencia 26
San Bartolo Coyotepec, Oaxaca.

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Mexicans love to wear masks, to dance and make music in a blazing display of fireworks, feasting and shooting off pistols. Appearances are deceptive; even the poorest pueblo collects money to celebrate the patron saint’s day, the Virgin of Guadalupe, Independence Day and whatever else calls for gaiety and loud noise. Religious and historical dances can’t be beat for noise: drums, conch shell horns, seed pods filled with gravel and tied around the legs. Many danzantes in the state of Jalisco affix clacking soles to their sandals The dancers wear masks or elaborate feather head dresses.

Magical Rite

In Jalisco a magical rite of pre-Hispanic origin is the dance of the paixtle, the Nahuatl word for moss. Twenty years ago they wore capes of moss, today dancers who represent sorcerers dress themselves in a fabric to represent moss and wear wooden or paper masks with human features, covering the head and face with a bandana. Forming two lines, they dance to the music of a violin playing a lovely sone, a type of indigenous music. They make fierce animal cries, shaking a staff carved with the head of a deer from which hangs a string of rattles.

The dance of las plumas or the feathered ones is another one of the principal dances of Jalisco. The dancers, clad in colorful cloaks, form two lines and stamp out the rhythm following the drum beaten by the mayordomo. He is elected to his position and takes charge of all the arrangements for food and lodging when the group dances outside their pueblo. People join the troupe and practice frequently to bring honor to the pueblo. Often they join to fulfill a promise made to a saint. Different troupes add characters to the dance: Aztec kings, historical fights between the Federalists and Centralists, Cortes and even a Texan.

The part of La Malinche is danced by a young girl with a tall head dress of pheasant, turkey or ostrich feathers. Ultimately she accepts Christianity from the Spaniards, bowing in submission. Francis Toor in A Treasury of Mexican Folkways writes, “In this dance the Spaniards are very good religious people who do not want the heathens’ gold; they are only interested in saving their souls.”

Carnivals Commemorate Battles

Carnivales commemorate battles such as the victory of Santa Ana over the French in Vera Cruz. Sham battles may be staged or dances performed in which the participants wear bearded masks of the pale-skinned invaders.

A memorable mock battle is held in mid August in Zacatecas between the Moors and the Christians. The battle to convert the heathen Moors goes on for several days amid music and merriment. The Moors wear golden crowns and black beardless masks and bring their harems to the encampment. This mock battle on horseback began after the Conquest, and Spaniards took part enthusiastically.

Dancers in lacquered black masks perform the dance of the Moors in Michoacan. Dancers wear crowns of gilt paper, colored feathers and beads and velveteen capes and trousers. The danza is performed on saints’ days and the costumes are embellished with silver fish. Ihuatzio on the shore of Lake Patzcuaro hosts an elaborate dance of the Moors on October 4, Saint Francis birthday.

In pre-Hispanic times masked dances celebrated great events, history, and the deeds of heroes and gods as well as cataclysms like eclipses, famines and earthquakes So the original dances may have incorporated Christian themes during the Colonial era. The dance of the Santiagos is an example, honoring St. James who triumphs over the heathen amid much gaiety and heckling. Probably the original Santiago was a god of the Aztec religion; now he is always depicted astride a white horse. The Santiagos in Michoacan wear silver fishes tied to their waists to symbolize Christianity and may wear wooden masks with black beards. Four of them dance in a line, cutting intricate figures.

Some of my favorite places and dates to see the danzantes are:

• January 3 – 10: Fiesta of El Señor del Monte in Jocotepec, dancers from many pueblos dance in the plaza in Jocotepec and in the atrium of the church. There are parades and dances in most small pueblos in late August, and the mock battle of the Moors and the Christians in Zacatecas.
• June 24: St. John the Baptist. In many towns, and villages.
• 16 of September: Independence Day celebrated before and after the anniversary in El Chante and Nestipac as well as Mezcala, best reached by launch from Chapala.
• October 12: Dia de la Raza or Columbus Day. I would think this might be a day of mourning, but it is celebrated in most parts of Mexico.
• November 1 and 2: Day of the Dead in Angahuan, Michoacan and in Mitla, or Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca.
• November 28: Dance of the Santiagos. Uruapan and Patzcuaro in Michoacan, and Tuxpan in Jalisco.
• 2 weeks before Christmas: pastorelas , little dramas with masks and costumes in the primary schools in Jocotepec. These medieval plays were once commonly performed in the atrium of the church.

Published or Updated on: May 1, 2000 by Cat Gonzales © 2005

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A potter’s story: an answer for all those who asked

A friend asked me, “Is it sane to build a pottery studio in Mexico?”

I could hardly answer. I didn’t even know if was sane to move to Mexico. I see myself as a sensible and self-reliant farm girl, but after moving to Mexico, even I question that picture of myself.

Five years ago I suddenly told my family, “I’m going to get married, sell my house and studio in Colorado and move to Mexico. I’m going a build a house, continue my love of photography, and build a new pottery studio.”

My mother, who is quite English and is a member of every historical and genealogical society in existence, said, “You’ll never get me to Mexico.”

I flippantly replied, “We’ll drug you and take you there and when you wake up you’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven.”

“Absolutely never.”

A very loving and protective cousin said, “Mexico will have another revolution, take away your property, and then ship you back to the states.”

I blabbered something about this being almost the 21st Century and told him that the world has changed and about our need for our neighbors to the South.

Another friend said, “I don’t understand why anyone would move to a third world country.”

My mind flooded with memories of the eight weeks I spent in Nepal as a photographer. Chickens, cows, and children rushed to the side of a small field located on top of a mountain as our prop-plane landed on the very bumpy meadow. Then we walked twelve hours on steep mountain paths to reach our destination. Each morning the sherpas came to my tent and delivered a tiny bowl of water to me to use for washing.

I said to my friend, “In my opinion, Mexico is not a third world country.”

I thought to myself, “Either admit the insanity of it all or talk them into how sensible it is.”

Little did I realize that more tests of my sanity were ahead . . .

Driving in Guadalajara was the first real test of my sanity. There were hardly any signs with printed street names. People honked and turned in front of me as I tried to maneuver around the “gloriettas.” I had to watch the traffic and could not look more than a few feet in front of my car, so how could I even begin to find land-marks? After hours of trying to make a left turn, I would give up and drive back to Ajijic.

I became obsessed. The devil himself would have to be reckoned with in order to learn how to drive in Guadalajara. I prayed to God. I prayed to what I call the “spirit of compassion for poor lost gringos.” I tried positive visualizations saying over and over, “I am now finding my way to the place I want to be.” I pulled over and recited Buddhist Meditations searching for compassion in my heart for the wild Mexican drivers. I believe some of these prayers helped and now I feel sane when I drive in Guadalajara. I mastered the game so well that I wonder why Americans don’t play by the same rules.

Driving in Guadalajara just requires that your bumper is in front of everyone else’s bumper.

But risky driving is nothing compared to the insanity of rebuilding a pottery studio and kiln in Mexico.

I said to an acquaintance, “You won’t believe how great it will feel to continue working in clay.”

“Why are you making pottery in a place where there are so many potters? Their work is world famous and it is not very expensive,” she replied.

“Because I have been insane over this last year with not having my hands in clay. We’ve had to concentrate on building the home and studio.”

At this point, I felt weary explaining all my actions and I remembered the popular saying, “just do it”

I had to find supplies and a kiln builder.

On my first search to find a potter to help, someone asked me why a woman would want to build a kiln. They said, “pottery is dirty work.” I told him I had been doing pottery for almost 24 years, thanked him for his time and drove back to Ajijic. It seemed as if I was constantly driving back to Ajijic from Guadalajara after trying to accomplish some small goal. I felt frustrated but knew I had to be persistent.

With the tenacity I inherited from my mother (still un-drugged and still not in Mexico), I flipped through the yellow pages of the Guadalajara phone directory looking for the words, ” ceramica, ultra tempetura.” I found a name, Rodo Padilla, High-Fire Ceramics and then called Señor Padilla for an appointment. In his studio I saw familiar books written about ceramics. Pottery magazines from the US, France, Canada, and Japan were laying on his desk. I discovered Rodo had worked in clay all his life. He studied pottery in Japan, Argentine, and in Italy. Rodo’s understanding, his knowledge of the clay field, his friendly manner, his respect for other potters and his enthusiasm for the world of clay put me at ease right away. I was where I needed to be. “I can put you in touch with a high-fire kiln builder from Tonala and together we will work on what you need.”

“You can get high-fire clay and materials for your studio from Marie in Mexico City. She ships truck-loads of supplies from Laguna Clay in Los Angeles and distributes them to potters all over Mexico.”

“Wonderful,” I replied.

I called Marie and ordered ten boxes of high-fire porcelain clay that arrived in a couple of weeks. I talked with the kiln builder and told him I needed to fire to 2,300 degrees and described the cube-shape kiln I wanted him to design and build. We agreed on a price. “I believe they are finally taking me seriously,” I say triumphantly to my husband.

A couple of months later a huge red truck with a giant crane arrives with a high-fire kiln poised on the top. My husband is in the street below photographing the kiln as it dangles up and over the wall. I stand in the yard clicking my camera as fast as I can from another angle. Between shots, I jump up and down with delight as the crane lowers the kiln to the ground. The builders move the kiln efficiently on rollers to its permanent place in the new pottery studio. The kiln builder and his helpers return to the truck to drive back to Tonala.

I think about all the kind and industrious Mexican people I have come to know and say to my husband, “I have the answer to the question about my sanity.”

“What’s that?”

“If becoming less self-reliant, trusting good people, and depending on others is a sign of sanity, then I am more sane.”

“Yes, you are more sane than you were before.”

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Living here in Mexico offers me so many opportunities to be thankful. How did I ever fit a career into my life? My days are filled with friends, with travels, with bridge, with doll making and writing books… and, recently, installing my new computer, learning new software programs and figuring out how to save important files from my old computer.

Artisans in Tonala

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine, Marilyn Davis, who wrote Mexican Voices. American Dreams took me to see Tonala from the inside out. We invited Karen Greenbury along (remember, she is touring Mexico with a 17 foot trailer, a dog and a cat ). Marilyn is an anthropologist, a quilter, a writer and a tour guide. She’s worked in Mexico for 26 years, living with an indigenous tribe. Marilyn is documenting their conversion from 15th century life before electricity or roads to the current time, where roads and television have connected them to the rest of the world and dramatically changed their lives.

This week she’s taking a group of people to Cuba for a Thanksgiving experience. Two weeks ago, she invited Karen and I into Tonala where we visited several of the best artists in Mexico and watched them work in their own homes. In the home of Angel Ortiz Gabriel and his family, we learned about the ancient art of  barro bruñido negro y tradicional (black and traditional burnished clay). His home has dirt floors and we watched spellbound as Señor Ortiz and his son hand-painted the clay figures with intricate traditional scenes. Señor . Ortiz makes all of his own paints and brushes. His daughter burnished the paint into the clay by rubbing it with small pyrite stones that shine like molten silver. After burnishing the figures, they are fired in a kiln.

I purchased a beautiful wall lamp, nativity set, and three figurines. His son has won national awards and Marilyn suggested if we wanted to buy art for investment purposes, this was the place to do it.

Only this burnished clayware retained its painting when it was dug up from burial grounds centuries later.

At one studio, we were offered a traditional breakfast dish consisting of large chunks of sweet potatoes and squash. They had been boiled with a sweet round ball about the size of a golf ball, which created a sweet caramel flavor. Hmm, good.

The artist, in a studio above his home, was making unique candles which resembled vegetables with whimsical faces carved onto them. These were commercial products which sold faster than he could make them and kept food on the table while he and his brother created one-of-a-kind masks that would scare the Adams family. With snakes and serpents crawling in and out of the mouths and eyes, they were brightly colored and intricate. Some had won awards in national competition. Those masks were not for sale.

We were invited to Jesus Gabriel’s papier mache factory which intrigued me. It was originally two homes joined by a garden. The front home housed the artist upstairs and provided a showroom downstairs. This operation was set up for wholesale and exportation rather than retail.

Gray newspaper and cardboard composition sheets were wetted down, then pressed into half-molds and dried in the sun. Then, the two halves were joined with strips of newspaper and glue, sanded, sealed, painted and signed by the artists.

I purchased a huge colorful parrot which now hangs on my patio to keep me company as I read, swinging in my Sky Chair. What a life.

Patamban

The last weekend in October a few friends and I joined a small tour to Patamban in Michocan. I normally avoid tours, not liking the set schedules and waiting for people to get on and off of a bus, but this was an exception. The tour was led by Jill of Mexico Cultural Journeys and she’s a very knowledgeable Mexico historian.

This weekend was special. It was the day the village painted their streets with wild flowers for the Fiesta de Cristo Rey. The celebration recalls the moment Christ was crowned with a laurel and embraced as the Son of God.

It was spectacular. There were hundreds of buses lined up on the three-mile road from the highway into the village. A little mordida (pesos) helped us pass up the line and get to within a mile of our destination. Along the streets, vendors from all over Michoacan sold their wares. Baskets, wooden spoons, woven straw hats and pottery were everywhere.

Jill arranged for us to visit a couple of the well-known artisans in the village. I managed to purchase something heavy, but one of the boys in the family helped us carry my prize back to the bus. In exchange for our purchase we were allowed to use the bathroom. In Patamban there are only outhouses. This one was clean and had a curtain to separate it from the garden. And, there was toilet paper. It’s the little things in life that are important now!

The street decorations were unbelievable. Hanging from wires strung across the street every few feet were decorations made from straws, painted paper plates, Styrofoam cups embellished with ribbons and fabric and whatever else was available. The ingenuity of the Mexican people never ceases to amaze me. Each block had its own theme. Cardboard arches were constructed over the streets and adorned with miniature clay dishes, painting or straw embellishments.

Up the center of each street, in a strip of sawdust about three feet wide and two inches deep, hundreds of thousands of wild flowers and dyed sawdust were imbedded, portraying beautiful scenes or simple geometric designs. Every family was involved. The sun shone and the people were proud to show off their handiwork to their guests and to their Cristo Rey.

On the way to Patamban we stopped first for a picnic lunch at Lake Camecuaro. What a photo opportunity. It has been the site of several Mexican movies and is the centerpiece for many Purepecha legends.

“ Camecuaro” means the place of the baths. It is 1400 meters long, 100 meters wide and is fed by 1,300 underground springs. Three hundred year old cypress trees surround the lake and their roots form an above-ground labyrinth upon which to climb and take pictures. It’s a wonderful lake with many places for picnics, swimmers and even boat rentals. Vendors around the lake sell food, drinks and paraphernalia for the lakeside guests.

We stayed at Hotel Meson del Lago, just a short walk from the lake. The rooms were pleasant, clean and the breakfast was wonderful.

After lunch, we visited San Jose de Gracias, the village of the ceramic green pineapples and pigs. This is an ndigenous village and in every home you could buy the dark green pottery. I picked up an ornate green punch bowl with cover and six cups hanging around the bowl.

When the Franciscans came to Mexico they taught each village a different craft or trade, so they would have the ability to trade. Every piece of this shiny dark green pottery has originated from this small village since those days centuries ago.

Finally, we visited the town of Ocumicho to visit the artists who fashion the well-known mischievous devil figures and tableaus collected by art enthusiasts around the world. Women and children would call to us in the street and lead us to their homes in hopes we’d purchase some of their figures. My friend is collecting these and she likes the “naughty” ones. You open an innocent figure like a pineapple and inside are two clay devils performing X-rated acts. It was funny watching her trying to ask the locals where she might find this type of figure. She even blushed.

So, for these opportunities to see the real Mexico, share the experiences with friends and meet incredible artisans in their own homes, I am truly grateful.

Perhaps this column is my way of sharing some of the joy I have found in Mexico and encouraging others to step outside the box. Plan a trip here. There’s so much to do and so little time.

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Few gemstones evoke the excitement of a precious fire opal. The flashy show of this gem makes each specimen unique, a fountain of mystery, enchantment and legend. Some say that opals convey foresight and good health. No wonder that it is the October birth stone. Pre-historically, the Aztecs are said to have decorated their most prized artworks and figurines with inlaid fire opal. Today precious opals produced from Mexican mines are sought after in the U.S.A., Canada, Europe and the Orient. When these radiant stones are enhanced by a gold mounting, the results are spectacular. Working with native material, Mexican jewelers create beautiful yet modestly priced treasures of opal jewelry. Indeed, the value of jewelry exported from Mexico in the first half of 1999 was estimated at just over 100 million dollars.

What is opal? Technically, this mineral is made of silica, the chemical name for silicon dioxide. Common forms of silica are ordinary glass and crystals of quartz. The opal mined today was formed many millions of years ago in volcanic rocks. Opals formed when silica, carried by water, deposited in voids left by gas bubbles and in rock fractures. The silica did not crystallize, but solidified from a gel to form microscopic spheres. Water was trapped in these spheres so light passing through the water is broken into the spectrum of colors seen in this precious gem. The effect is similar to light passing through water drops in the sky to form a rainbow. If you have an opal, you possess your own rainbow!

The play of fiery colors is the universal quality of opal. However, the body of the stone that displays these colors can be clear, white, reddish or dark (black opal). The clear variety is termed “crystal” or “jelly” opal while the darker stones may qualify as a “black opal”. Red silica without a play of colors is termed “vidrio rojo” or red glass that is only a close relative to the fully developed opal.

More desirable opals display a full range of the rainbow colors evenly distributed across the face of the stone. The experts prefer a bright, clear stone with sharp flashes of color. Black opals are considered to be the most valuable. Cracks or fractures in the stone can interfere with the play of colors and they may cause the stone to disintegrate. However, if you are buying opals, go with what is pleasing to you.

Opals are seen in a variety of finished forms. They may be presented with the fire opal enclosed in a portion of the host rock. Such an opal is termed “in matrix”. The opal-bearing rock may be artistically sculpted into figurines of animals, fish, etc., with the opal representing a portion of the subject. For example, a bird may be carved from the host rock with the opal forming the resplendent colors of a wing. Opal may be carved into free forms or shaped into a domed, non-faceted polished cut (cabochon). Cabochons are usually mounted in rings, pendants, necklaces and earrings. Opals are sold by the carat; the price per carat will vary with the seller’s evaluation of the beauty of the stone.

The most durable opal is a solid piece, free from fractures. Buyers should avoid “manufactured” pieces. These are actually made by gluing a thin piece of good quality opal to a base of other material to form a doublet. Triplets consist of a thin slice of opal sandwiched between a cap of clear quartz and a base. The most outrageous fakes are fragments of opal floating in a clear plastic cast into a cabochon shape. The manufactured opals are particularly susceptible to damage from improper care and exposure to water, soap or solvents that can attack the glue or plastic.

Opals should be treated with care; like most gems, they will shatter or crack if treated roughly. Opals should also be stored away from heat as high temperatures can drive out the contained water, and they should be rubbed with light oil to prevent moisture loss.

One of the best areas to view and buy opals is in the town of Magdalena, in the state of Jalisco, a one-hour drive north west of Guadalajara. Take the auto pista ( Cuota) to Tepic and leave at the Magdalena exit. Alternatively, use the old highway to Tepic, which is in good condition. Magdalena is just 20 minutes from the distilling town of Tequila so the area has more than one attraction.

If you stop for more than a few minutes at the Magdalena plaza you will attract opal vendors. The offering may be presented in a small water filled bottle containing rough and/or polished stones. Judging from the values in the stores around the plaza, the street vendors start with a high price, so bargaining is advised. The shops offer a variety: rough opal in matrix, unmounted stones and jewelry. As well as the shops on the plaza, the store Opalas de Magdalena, three or four blocks from the plaza, on the road to Tequila/Guadalajara, is worth visiting. Good shopping for your piece of Mexican Fire !!

Footnotes:

Around the turn of the century, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in one of his “Sherlock Holmes” novels, mentioned Opals in connection with bad luck. English Diamond Merchants, fearing the growth in popularity of Opals, used Doyle’s reference as a starting point to create many “Old Wives Tales”, or blatant lies, to denigrate this precious gem stone.

However:

• Opal is not soft – it is the same hardness as glass, but it is brittle.
• Opal is not unlucky – for centuries before this story, Opal had been considered to be a stone of good fortune.
• Opal does not shrink.
• Opal does not lose its colour. However, if allowed to dry out, it can crack.
• Opal is not affected by water. Triplets, in the past however, have been glued with a resin which does not agree with moisture. This resin has come apart, causing the Opal to appear cloudy. Most triplets now have a water-resistant glue – check before purchasing, and always obtain a guarantee.

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Cogan’s Reviews

Here’s a rather unusual volume that certainly took me by surprise. It’s a book about, of all things, ferns. However, as you get into it you soon find out it’s about much more. Frankly, I couldn’t care less about ferns but I have to add that I read this book in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it. I suspect that someday I might read it again.

Oliver Sacks, who has written nine books on a wide variety of subjects, is a clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He is also an amateur pteridologist, which is to say he’s interested in ferns. Along with some thirty members of the American Fern Society he went on a conducted 11-day tour of Oaxaca, early in 2000. Out of such fairly humble beginnings comes this offbeat charmer of a travel book.

I should warn you that there are a few passages, especially early on in the journey, where you’ll encounter text like this:

“When speaking on fern cultivation,” he said, “I find myself citing the ostrich fern as my favorite, and a minute later the autumn fern is my favorite. In fact, I have three hundred favorite ferns. I love the ostrich fern for its great shuttlecock form and its wide-creeping runners, and the autumn fern for its red sori and dark lustrous fronds that remains standing upright and green all through the winter. I like the Himalayan maidenhair for its delicate beauty. Some of my favorites have special memories – I found the Mexican woodfern on top of Cerro San Felipe, here in Oaxaca, after its not having been collected anywhere for over a hundred years. For scientific study, Anemia and Elaphoglossum claim my vote, though Cheilanthes and Selaginella are close behind. How do you choose among your children?”

These quasi-technical passages can make for rather heavy going, especially when the Latin terminology gets bandied about. However, they do ease off considerably as the narrative progresses and Sacks responds more to other aspects of travel in Mexico. Also, the reader is assisted somewhat by a small collection of drawings of ferns interspersed throughout.

Why did these fern fanciers make the journey to Oaxaca? Seems it’s an area that is richer in fern species than any other part of Mexico. There are some 690 species in Oaxaca state. In comparison, in the whole of North America there are perhaps 100 species.

But Oliver Sacks is obviously too seasoned a traveller and too astute an observer to confine himself to ferns. One encounters a host of pleasures as he ruminates on a variety of topics. He muses about the New World’s contributions to civilization -cocoa, tobacco, potatoes, tomatoes, chilies, gourds, pepper, maize, chewing gum, cochineal and exotic hallucinogens. In Monte Alban he considers the production of rubber which the Zapotec people used to make balls to play – would you believe – basketball. Yet the early conquerors from our world seemed only to care about the gold and the silver they found there. Throughout he responds positively to the civilization that obviously existed in the area many centuries ago.

The author’s companions sound like an intelligent lot. There are thirty of them, with varied backgrounds – teachers, scientists, housewives, business people. They all seem like good travellers, linked by their enthusiasm and their shared interest in ferns, yet open to new experiences and sights.

Their guide, Luis, seems as though he was well able to keep up with this crowd. Throughout he gives them good coverage of the history of the area, dating back to the earliest settlements, probably around 5000 BC. Sacks is intrigued with “the sun-oriented, sky-oriented, wind- and weather-oriented culture” that he sees. What sort of poems and epics did these MesoAmerican civilizations produce, he wonders?

They visit the home of a family of master weavers whose carpets and blankets are famous outside Mexico. They see Don Isaac, the master weaver, at work. But they also see his mother, his wife, his brothers, his sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews, all working in different aspects of the business. This really intrigues Sacks. “All of them know who they are, have their identities, their places, their destinies…. they belong.” There are other weaver families in the village. And no experts are needed to help them. “How different from our own more ‘advanced’ culture,” he muses, “where nobody knows how to make anything for themselves.” He admits to a certain envy, as well as some concern. “Are such villages doomed to disappear in our super-specialized, mass market world?”

He evidently enjoys his food. He writes almost lovingly of the group’s visit to La Escondida Restaurant where the buffet offers more than a hundred dishes, “some of them visually intriguing, surreal, and almost none of them recognizable.” After sampling about twenty or so dishes he gives in. Oaxaca has the richest, most varied food in Mexico, he declares. “I think I’m beginning to fall in love with the place.”

On one occasion the group was treated to a total lunar eclipse, which leads to an interesting rumination on what the ancients might have made of such a happening. How would their priests and magi have explained an event where their world was plunged into total blackness for five surprising minutes?

And, yes, occasionally there’s the discovery of some ferns. “It takes a practiced eye to see dried-up, withered and contracted ferns, to pick them out from the brown earth, but most of the group have had experience with this, and now, lenses in hand, careless of their clothes, they are crawling all over the ground, climbing the slopes, picking out new ferns every second. ‘Notholaena galeotti!’ someone cries. ‘Astrolepis sinuata!” cries another, and there are no fewer than five species of Cheilanthes.”

But it isn’t all a matter of crawling around on all fours looking for rare ferns. The group visit markets and spice shops and chocolate factories – and they’re the kind of people who respond positively to the new sights and experiences all around them. This is all passed on to the reader by author Sacks.

Personally, I found this to be a book that had something of interest on almost every page. It’s also something of an object lesson. It made me resolve, next time I take a trip, especially to an area that’s new to me, to be more observant, more curious, to keep my eyes and ears open, to take notes, to perhaps do some research before leaving home. In other words, make the effort to enhance the total experience, as Sacks has done here.

In my humble O: If you enjoy a good travel book it’s well worth looking for this one. You don’t have to be a fern fancier.

Oaxaca Journal
By Oliver Sacks
National Geographic Directions. 2002. 162 pages

Available from Amazon Books: Paperback

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