Oaxaca Diary #7: Alebrijes in the Hills
A day trip to San Antonio Arrazola.
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Officially, Oaxaca’s rainy season doesn’t end until November 15th, but all evidence suggests that the lead-up to Día de Muertos, Mexico’s world-famous holiday, the Day of the Dead, will be marked by stunning weather. The mornings and nights here in the hills, mountains, and valleys of southern Mexico are crisp enough to merit shoes and light jackets, and this time of year has us pulling the wool blankets or comforters on our beds just a little bit higher. But by the time the afternoon glides into place, the sun has ushered in 80-degree temps and a light breeze makes the palm trees wave. With the consistent rains of la Temporada de Lluvia behind us, we’re experiencing one of the rare moments when Oaxaca has what feels like autumn weather, and all across the state, and particularly in the Valles Centrales, harvest festivals and celebrations happen on what feels like every day of the week.
Our friend Catalina visited us over the weekend, marking the fourth time she’s come to see us. No one else has visited us this frequently, including our families, and over time, we’ve established something of a routine. If she arrives in the morning, we go straight to Bodæga and order far more food than is reasonable. After shocking everyone dining around us with our gluttony, we follow up our breakfast of fruit-laden pastries with a pleasant shopping expedition across the city’s Centro neighborhood, and from there make our way north to our town, so that she can settle in and we can plan our next meal.
Because she has been here so often, though, there is a need to introduce novelty. Catalina was our neighbor in New York, a friend at the end of our hall, and more than anyone else we know, she takes advantage of New York’s incredible variety of sights, restaurants, and activities. We knew she’d be game for an adventure.
One of the Mexican tourism authority’s better ideas was los Pueblos Mágicos, a guide to the country’s “magical towns.” These are the places so unique and gorgeous that they’re worth breaking away from the country’s more famous cities and beaches, worthy of a vacation just to experience Mexico’s less-traveled corners. A lot of them don’t appear on American travel writers’ lists, which perhaps is one of the reasons they’re still so wonderful.
Oaxaca is, of course, on this list, but our beloved state also has its own initiative, la Ruta Mágica de Artesanías de Oaxaca. Rather than being centered around the sort of ineffable qualities that make a place not just worth visiting but memorably spectacular, the Ruta Mágica specifically recommends communities producing noteworthy artisan handicrafts. Travel through the towns listed and you’ll find pottery of all types, clay statues, handwoven wool rugs, belts, and, of course, alebrijes, the colorful and fantastical wood statues that inspired many of the visuals in the movie Coco.
Two towns are known for producing alebrijes. The more famous of the two, by far, is San Martín Tilcajete, which lies on a tourist-friendly highway leading directly south from the city of Oaxaca. This is somewhat ironic considering that the town responsible for first carving alebrijes out of wood is actually San Antonio Arrazola, a far lesser known town that most tourists will never visit.
San Martín is the town in Oaxaca we’ve visited more than any other, both because they host an occasional feria de alebrijes that is a reliably good time, and because it’s where we can find the smoke kitchen Almú, a 100% outdoor restaurant known for its incredibly wonderful food cooked over a wood fire (hence “smoke kitchen”) and, sadly, its spectacularly poor service.
Andrea and I, like so many other people, had never been to San Antonio Arrazola. It’s a small town, like San Martín, but it’s tucked into a far less accessible side valley that doesn’t easily fit into your typical tourist itinerary. When we learned via a poster that San Antonio would be hosting its own alebrije fair, Andrea, who prefers to spend her Sundays at home, told Cat and me that we should go and visit while she and Leo stayed at the house.
Our route to San Antonio took us around Monte Albán and up a road that was new to us. Up and up the road went, passing homes and businesses and what felt like hundreds of speed bumps. Eventually, the cracked pavement gave way to rocks and dirt, and all evidence suggested that we were traveling along a route favored exclusively by locals. It was hard to imagine a tour bus ever creeping along the uneven stretch.
Cat and I bumped and jostled our way along the ridge of a wide hill, passing fields lined with barbed wire and filled with little more than rocks and clods of dirt. More than once, we looked at each other and said, Where on earth are we?, when suddenly the road once again gave way to pavement and we found ourselves in the town itself. But as we navigated the streets and looked for the center of town, where we were sure they’d be hosting the feria, we found not even a whisper of the event we were looking for. There were no tourists, no posters, no decorations of any kind. The town seemed empty.
This is typical in Oaxaca. Shops often don’t have signs and don’t post hours, and, when they do, often don’t adhere to them, either opening late or closing early, or sometimes not showing up to open their business at all. Sometimes you’ll go to a town that you know is a tourist destination, only to find that practically every business seems locked and shuttered. While it might seem crazy to someone not acquainted with life in this type of community, San Antonio was so placid that we genuinely wondered if the event might not be happening at all.
Seeking help, Cat and I parked in front of a shop selling alebrijes that had its doors open and, tentatively stepping in, found ourselves inside a large, white room lit only by the sunlight filtering in from the street. After I called a tentative, “Hola?” into the interior, a small elderly woman appeared from deeper in the building.
“Hola, buenas tardes!” we said. “Do you know where the feria is?”
She immediately brushed off our question, ushering us into the shop while pointing to a hallway leading to other salons. We soon realized that the initial room we entered was connected to several others, all of which seemed to be part of a large family compound taking up a significant proportion of the block.
As she pointed to different rooms and galleries, we reiterated our question, and were rebuffed so many times that eventually Cat whispered to me, “I’m not sure she understands us.” Each room’s alebrijes showed different styles and levels of quality, and as she brought us through more and more rooms, we began to realize that the woman likely did understand us and simply wasn’t going to allow us to leave, viewing us as a captive audience. Finally, we stopped her and said directly in Spanish, “Do you know if the alebrije fair is happening today?” to which she replied, “What fair? There’s no event happening!”
Our hearts sank upon hearing that, but Catalina wasn’t deterred. Once we’d left the warren of rooms and had made it back to the car, she said to me, “Let’s drive to the point on the map you’d originally routed us to, maybe something is there.” So, feeling imperious, we continued our drive through town, stopping at other shops and asking about the fair. Eventually, a friendly shopowner said to us, “Oh yes! It’s just down the street.” Thanks to our persistence, but especially Catalina’s, we’d found it.
Compared to San Martín Tilcajete, whose fair we also visited later that same day, San Antonio Arrazola’s wasn’t quite as grand. The long courtyard it occupied, set up under a large tent, held maybe 15 or so vendors, although it’s possible more would join the event either later in the day or at a later date. But we were thrilled by the quality of what we saw, and the pricing largely seemed fair, with great deals to be had for those willing to give each table a close look.
What was especially nice, though, was being able to see the carving traditions of another town. Because San Martín is so much easier for tourists to access, sometimes the narrative presented by the artisans who live there makes it sound like their way is the only way. In San Antonio, patterns were different, carvings had a slightly different and unique style, and some alebrijes were made with Jacaranda wood, a type never seen in San Martín. While certainly some of the shapes and depictions of animals are commonly shared across the communities, for the first time, I had a chance to see a different interpretation of this art form.
All things considered, San Antonio Arrazola also wasn’t that hard to get to. For the past two years, we’d had this community less than an hour away from us, made inaccessible really because it wasn’t immediately convenient. It was a reminder that we need to continue to explore more, and that Oaxaca has a lot it can still show us.
I haven't been to San Martín Tilcajete, but we visited San Antonio Arrazola twice two years ago. Have you been to Tallador de Sueños in San Antonio Arrazola, the home of the world renowned alebrije artist Manuel Jiménez? Such lovely people there!
We went on that same road and had similar thoughts!
So nice that you have a friend who like to visit you so often.