08.15.05

Back from Paracho

Posted in Travel at 3:12 am

Trish and Bill waiting for the bus

We left San Miguel on Saturday morning at 8.15 from the bus station. Trish and I arrived there around 7.45 and Bill got there around 8.10 to find out that the bus was leaving in five minutes. The bus was going to Celaya and should have taken an hour or so but instead took two hours, traffic and stopping created delays.

We arrived in Celaya, a town that one could miss easily. Its a fairly large town but not an attractive town at all. We found out where the bus to Morelia was going from and when it was leaving which was fairly soon and we bought tickets and got on the bus. After buying tickets we had to go through a security station that we didn’t realize. It seems that Morelia is a more upscale town, beautiful city and well kept. Trish had bought a knife for the avocados and we had brought stuff for sandwiches since we were not sure what we would encounter and didn’t want to risk getting sick. As we passed through security they saw the knife and took it away from us. They joked about the guitar cases and asked if we had a gun in there and never looked in our backpacks.

A very different bus experience, the seats are assigned, there is a movie playing and they give you something to eat and a choice of bottle water or soda. Turns out we were watching the King Arthur movie that I had never seen and it was in English with Spanish subtitles. It passed the time it took to get from Celaya to Morelia.

We then took a bus to Uruapan. Another first class bus where we had to pleasure fo watching Taxi, a fairly inane movie that was dubbed in Spanish.

I opted to watch the landscape which was quite amazing. The land changed from sparse shrubs of cactus and scrub to lush green with forests and rolling hills. We had moved from Guanajuato provence into Michochan where the monarch butterflies are in certain times of the year by the throusands. I watched as the bus passed green fields with cows and horses and at one point near the water a bunch of bulls roamed near what looked like a bull ring for fighting. A batch of cows grazed surrounds by white egrets and the mountains loomed in the distance. The trip was another two hours or so and we finally arrived it Uruapan where we proceeded to buy tickets again to Paracho. This bus was more local and there was no movie and by now the rain was coming down fairly hard. The whole day was gray and cloudy and threatening rain.

We arrived in Paracho and were let off the side of the road in the rain and proceeded to make our way into town. There was a young man on board who struck up a conversation in English with Trish and he was also going to Paracho and led us part of the way into town.

Beginning of the parade in Paracho

Saturday was the last day of the annual guitar festival and is also a town known for guitar makers. A fairly small town it is filled with guitar shops and everywhere you look you see guitars lining the windows of stores. The town though small was filled with people and we walked down the main road and through the square which was difficult to get through. Our main mission for going to Paracho was to visit the shop of the guitar maker that Bill bought his instrument from. He was hoping to trade it in for a better one. We realized that there was a parade happening shortly on the street and we made our way in the rain to Salvador’s shop. He was told we would be there around 2 pm but it in fact took us 8 hours of traveling to get to this town.

He was there waiting and we proceeded to try a number of guitars. Off and on I went out to take photos of the parades passing by and then would come back in and play guitars.

Groups form lines and link arms as they parade down the street. Behind them is a marching band playing the same tune as all the other marching bands and men run in and out and around the groups of women laughing. Of course there are also a few open bottles of medicine around.

Video Clip

Passing parade

Drummer

Musician

Guitar maker

Closer shot of guitar maker on float

Salvador and Bill

We played guitars for a few hours and then decided to take a break and find some food. He offered to feed us at his house and his wife left the shop and went to buy food and we proceeded to his house to have dinner.

They had already eaten and fed us in a very sparse but comfortable house with chicken, rice with corn, pig’s feet that were pickled, I passed on that, pickled carrots and lettuce with tortillas. Of course there was a bottle of tequila and though not my drink of choice was very good. We ate while they watched and talked and then went back to the shop to play guitars more which was difficult because of the noise of a band playing across the street to traditional dance.

Salvador’s father came in a few times, he too is a guitar maker and stood and listened. He had some very nice instruments and two in particular that were to be chosen between. We played guitars back and forth, listening to the sounds, playing different things and being very confused by what we were hearing. Finally we decided to call it a night and find a hotel to stay in and spend time in the town at the festival.

Orchestra playing in the square.
Video clip

We walked to town, the square was filled with a few thousand people, people selling food and clothing and wooden objects and shoes and anything you might want. We walked to the hotel that was in town to see if there was a room. They told us they had only one reserved and that we should come back a half hour later to see if it was taken or not.

We proceeded to walk around the town, met Salvador and his family there and talked with them then went back to the hotel to find out that they indeed had one room available with two beds and we could stay only one night. We were happy to have found a place and dropped out things and Bill and I went back to town to walk around.
About 11 PM an orchestra played some traditional music and before than a young rock group performed. All the chairs were filled with people who were sitting watching this and it went on until after midnight.

Video clip

We walked around through the streets and everywhere there was food being served and things being sold and we came across a ferris wheel and a merry ground and an area where there were carnival events happening. It was fun to be in this environment. Finally we decided to go to sleep.

Father and son having breakfast on the street before the day gets going. View from hotel

We woke to a gray day. I was able to make coffee in the room and we left around 9 am and walked the town again and arrived at Salvador’s shop at 9.30 where he was changing the bone on the bridge of one of his classical guitars to lower it to feel how it would play as a flamenco guitar.
Its a beautiful sounding instrument and all night Bill and I debated about it in relationship to a more flamenco guitar that had been returned to Salvator by another customer who wanted Salvator to make him a different instrument.

We played the instruments and I was convinced that Bill should get the second hand instrument. We were there for awhile, left for a bit then came back and met two men who live in LA and were visiting Paracho. They were playing and we sat down and Bill began to play with them.

We had to leave by noon and it was now noon and they wanted us to come back to the house to look at two guitars made by one of the men’s father and wanted us to come to a party later on to play and we had to catch a bus.
Bill finally decided on the blanca, the flamenco guitar returned by the customer. I eyed the negra, the more classical one that plays so beautifully and we left with a new guitar and in the rain that decided to arrive as we were leaving.
We followed the same path back to San Miguel, another 8 hours of travel and terrible movies, beautiful landscape again and the final bus somewhat of a nightmare. A local bus from Celaya, it stopped constantly and people got on and off and stood in the aisles and carried their wares that they had been selling all day, buckets of avocados and chopped up cactus and tomatoes. A man sat in front of us smothered in perfume of tequila which almost made us nauseous and children played in the back of the bus to ease the boredom. We felt as though we would never arrive and that we had been away for a month, it was only two days.

Now back and the images of those towns are vivid in my mind. Hopefully the photos will show a bit of what we saw though there were some many things I could not take photos of.

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