Guitar Fest in Zihuatanejo was a pleasure. Next year we vow to arrive early and sign on
as volunteers so we can see all the shows and play more of a part of this
magical event. At the Festival, we saw representatives from
the town of Paracho in the Mexican state of Michoacan who had a booth selling
hand- made guitars. Dan and Kathy from
the ketch Lungta suggested we join them and travel overland to visit Paracho by
car. We decided to join them as did two
other couples, Bob and Sherry on Nirvana, and Rick and Brenda on Dad’s
Dreams. So we checked our anchoring ground
tackle, buttoned up the four boats at anchor in Bahia de Zihuatanejo, and
headed inland in two rented cars. Since
the anchors had been down for two weeks we considered them well “soaked” and
trusted them to hold. A weather forecast
for mild winds gave us more confidence in our boat’s safety.
We drove northwest to the Autopista then turned north up the Balsas river valley crossing from the state of
Guerreo into the state of Michoacan. We
made good time on the toll road and soon found ourselves near the town of Nueva
Italia where we saw numerous Federales in black riot gear lining the sides of
the Federal highway. Of course I had
checked the web for information about towns on our route and had read the U.S.
state department’s travel warning for the state of Michoacan and specifically
the area around Nueva Italia. But it was
daytime and we were on a controlled access roadway so we weren’t too worried
about it.
Here is what I had learned:
The Knights Templar cartel has been fighting the New Generation cartel
for control of criminal activities in the area.
The police have stepped back and taken no action (probably because they
were part of the problem). Locals in
Nueva Italia,
and other nearby towns have banded together to form self-defense groups or
community police to do what the police cannot or will not do, force out the
cartels and restore law and order. Thus
the Federales stayed out of the towns and clustered along the federal toll highway,
the Autopista, containing the conflict to the countryside.
We drove north, choosing not to stop in scenic Nueva Italia, a small town founded by Italians in 1908 . An hour north, in Uruapan we got off the Autopista
and eventually found Highway 37 which climbed up into the hills to the small
town of Paracho. We checked into the
Santa Fe hotel, one of three in town.
Rick went looking for a liquor store to get ice for the cooler, Dan
searched for a restaurant, Bob got on the internet to find the most famous
guitar makers in town, and Scott and Connie just stood in the hotel room taking
in the sheer grandeur of it. Tile
floors, a balcony, a big bed, and amazingly, a bathroom with a shower and hot
water! 350 Pesos, about $30 USD. And
this, Hotel Santa Fe, was the fanciest hotel in town.
Rick found ice and Dan found the ONLY restaurant open after
dark. We had dinner then made an early
night of it. Ummmm Showers!
Ummmm big bed! Oh my Dog, TV and
the movie Zoro!
The next day was interesting, fun and a little bit odd. Connie and I started out by walking to the
Mercado where we found a soup booth where the gal had 8 big pots of various
kinds of soups setting on the counter or bubbling on the stove. Connie had the chicken broth base soup with
vegetables and some strange ground pork balls with fresh mint, yerba buena. I had a meat based soup with veggies and
chicken parts. Of course she gave me the
chicken foot, my least favorite part of the bird. We sat on a bench alongside the locals, many
of whom were dressed in the bright colored traditional garb of the P'urhépecha
natives. She would rotate the pots from
the stove to the counter, replacing the ones cooled with the hot ones from the
stove. Around us were many such small
booths with their specialty foods, many of which sold chopped port by the kilo
or on fresh tortillas. Workers came
through buying bags full of cooked foods to take with them on their way to work
or stopping for a hot breakfast soup.
The Mercado was a working market, not a tourist market and we were the
only gringos there. Behind the food booths stretched the vegetable market with
produce laid out on tables. Next door
were the cheese and butcher shops.
Thus began a day of wandering around Paracho, visiting the
many guitar shops and the luthiers,
makers of string instruments, in their
workshops creating beautiful stringed instruments from pine, mahogany, spruce,
ebony, rosewood, aguacate (avocado), koa, and maple. Walking down the street we ran into two young
men who asked if we were here to see guitars.
They led us to their father’s shop who just happened to be a famous
guitar maker that Bob had researched on the internet. They had three guitars on
display in the sparse storefront. To our
great enjoyment, the young son played one of the beautiful instruments in a flamenco
style.
Then the father came down from
his shop and greeted us and invited us upstairs to see where he did his work. He
led us up two flights of rickety iron steps to a loft workshop full of wood
shavings and wood working tools. We had
a wonderful time talking to this artist about how he made is instruments and
about the famous musicians who hired him to make their custom guitars. Nice!
With four couples wandering the streets, visiting shops, and
talking to luthiers we were lucky to escape the trip buying only two guitars,
one mandolin, and one violin, plus some cases, strings, picks, and percussion
instruments. We met back at our only
open restaurant for another four course dinner and talked about our day,
comparing our different experiences. Dan
had found a guitar shop where the proprietor had only partially finished
guitars on display. They agreed on the
fretting and tuning pegs to be added and the luthier finished the work for Dan
later that day so Dan truly had a custom guitar.
Bob found a mandolin at a large shop at the end of town that
had good sound and great action. He spent hours looking through their immense
inventory and tuned multiple mandolins before selecting the one he wanted. I found a discounted guitar in the shop of
Ignacio Barajas Caro. He had taken it
out of the storefront window where it had been on display for a long time. The woodwork on the front was discolored from
the sun and there were some scratches on the front where someone had hit it
with a guitar pick. I offered him less
than the asking price and he smiled and said that my offer was a good offer but
no. I offered him more. He complemented me on the offer again and
nicely declined. Then he tuned the
guitar, sat down, and played some beautiful music, smiling all the while. I hemmed and hawed and decided to sleep on it
to the morrow.
 |
| Ignacio Barajas Caro, Constructor de Guitarras |
Day three, we checked out of the hotel and I visited the
luthier on the end of town. Their
inexpensive guitars were pretty but just didn’t have the sound or the presence
as Ignacio’s. So Connie and I returned
to his shop to find it closed. We
wandered around for a while then came back as he was just opening up. He smiled graciously and I handed over 750
pesos, his full asking price. Then
Ignacio cleaned it up for me and helped me select a case for it. Bob and Sherry saw us and came into the shop
where Bob found a wonderful little violin, hand made by Ignacio. As the mandolin and violin have the same
tuning Bob is looking forward to experiencing both instruments.
We took a group photo at the entrance to town, the eight of
us standing under the fifty foot guitar in the middle of the street. Then we headed south back down the hills to
the town of Urapan. There we took a
wrong turn and ended up on tiny cobbled streets. We got separated from the other car and found
ourselves south of town on the Libre road, not the toll road. This road led us south towards Nueva Italia!
Entering a roundabout we took the turn to connect with the
autopista and right away ran into a roadblock.
The road had large rocks placed in the center so we had to get off onto
the shoulder. Metal pots blackened by
kerosene lined the sides of the road.
Nighttime flares I supposed. Then
we came to a sandbagged square manned by young men wearing matching tee
shirts. We had found the local militia
men! A nice young man spoke passing
English and questioned us about our business.
I showed him the contents of the trunk and the guitars we had bought in
Paracho. He waved us on. There were no uniformed police or soldiers in
sight.
Down the road we found the entrance to the autopista. I incoming ramp was barricaded closed and
guarded by a dead dog laying stinking on the street. We drove further till we found some locals
who suggested a circumstous route to another autopista entrance. Not wanting to spend much time driving around
a disputed territory we returned to the closed autopista entrance and Connie
and Rick walked up the closed ramp to talk to the attendant. “We have to get on this road!” The attendant then let us drive onto the
autopista using the off ramp. Saved us
56 pesos! Once on the federal highway we
passed dozens of flak jacketed, baklava wearing, federales with machine guns
and shiny trucks keeping the highway safe from the local militia. We felt a little less secure there on the
autopista so we put the petal to the metal and hoofed it back to Zihuatenjo
arriving just in time to check the rental car back in at the airport and
arrange a ride back to the pier.
All four boats were right where we left them there in the
bay. However, our neighbors had
left. The bay had emptied out after
Guitar Fest had ended with everyone flocking north towards Barra de
Navidad. We provisioned the boat and
headed north also, our boats starting out together then getting separated along
the way until Traveler was alone sailing into the night, Connie playing her
ukulele and me admiring my new-ish guitar from a lovely luthier in Paracho.
As I write this we are in Bandaras Bay anchored at La
Cruz. We had stopped here so I could
take the HAM radio exam but the test is cancelled because of a big regatta this
weekend. Dan and Kathy on Lungta are south
of us trying their best to sail instead of motor. Rick and Brenda on Dad’s Dreams headed south
to Apaculco. Bob and Sherry are still in
Barra de Navidad waiting for the north winds to calm down. Meanwhile he’s trying to decide which
instrument to play.
We head to Mazatlan on Monday buddy boating with Lane and
Vicky on Adesso. In Mazatlan we’ll
leave the boat for a quick trip by car to Phoenix to pick up our new water
maker and to get our six month visas renewed.
Then after driving back down to Mazatlan we’ll take some friends on
board to help with the crossing over to the Baja peninsula where our first big
stop will be the lovely town of La Paz.
And from there we head north into the Sea of Cortez. Stay tuned!
