Alebrijes and Oaxaca Valley Villages

Oaxaca State, Mexico

Mark should be careful of his new friend!

The famous watertower

We decided to push our low-to-the-ground knowledge level a bit recently, and enlisted the help of a new friend in Mexico, Jody, who was and is a Spanish teacher, a San Francisco (CA) native, and has lived on and off in Mexico and Oaxaca since 1978. We were introduced to Jody by friends we recently “re-met” in Chapala / Lakeside, Kevin and Erin. That story is long, but both of us knew Kevin maybe 20 years ago in our former “coffee lives,” and it turns out Linda went to high school with Kevin’s wife, Erin, in Othello WA (population 5,000) in the early 1980s. Crazy that we met up in Chapala, Mexico!

Bus -- we're not responsible for nuttin'

We asked Jody to introduce us to some of the pueblos south of Oaxaca, as well as a give us a primer on the local bus system. That in itself was a real eye opener. We left Oaxaca heading south on a van-sized bus, 30 pesos ($1.50) pp, and our first stop was a small pueblo called San Antonino Castillo Velasco. We took a mototaxi from the bus stop on the highway (another 21 pesos!), and stopped at the Iglesia Santo Domingo, a 16th century church.

Flashy neon!

Santo Domingo in San Antonino

Overall, 15 churches in the area were restored with the oversight and funding from a local Ocotlan Zapotec artist, Rodolpho Morales, who died in 2001. The church itself was striking. From the outside it had a painted façade, with a giant 15-foot rosary hanging above the entrance.







Inside, the painted murals and frescos were beautiful, and though Guadalupe got a nice statue of Juan Diego kneeling before her, she herself only got a 2-dimensional painting. Mary got a full-on statue. Just sayin’.

No photo of produce, meat focussed!

We then walked through the San Antonino Mercado, a great market. Someone wrote that Mexicans have a special gift for stacking produce, (and meat), and it was on full display here. They looked like food altars, and we wanted to just stand and glory in their beauty.

Being tracked

We strolled up the road over to Ocotlan, the “big town” in the area. We noticed as we walked (maybe a kilometer) that the dogs looked pretty healthy, and ran in packs of 2-8. They were pretty focused on you if you had food, but otherwise were non-plussed.




When we reached the zocalo in Ocotlan, we walked to the Palacio Gobierno, which had large murals painted by the aforementioned Senor Morales. The building had cerrado (closed) tape across the doors, but as often happens in Mexico, if you look in and are interested, someone shows up and lets you in.

Rodolpho Morales mural of tianguis (market) day

One long wall was covered with a mural from the 1950s (or so) that showed life as it had been in the area for hundreds of years, before Cortes and after. The other wall had more contemporary themes, with many “flying ladies,” ala Marc Chagall. These were from the 1970s we were told.




Another beautifully restored church was in Ocotlan.











We then took another mototaxi (these are basically motorcycles fitted with a cab that hold a driver in the front and 3 people in the back, 15 pesos for 3 people) to a couple of talles de artesanas (workshops), the most famous of which was that of Josefina Aguilar.



She is famous for her clay figurines, tiny and large,
and generally brightly painted. It is a family affair, with multiple generations working, and kids running under foot, playing. We had fun trying out the various campanillas (little bells) made of clay. They had enough different pitches to create a bell choir.







We caught another bus back toward San Martin Tilcajete, this pueblo famous for its alebrijes, the carved and brightly painted wooden animals made famous (again) in the movie Coco. We walked into the village, and noticed ALL the various alebrije shops through town.

The workshop consulted for that movie is that of Jacobo y Maria Angeles. The merchandising of the workshop was top notch. We had a guide who took us around and explained things, all in very fast Español (we decided against English to push ourselves a little). Linda thinks she got about 70% of it, Mark says he got 25%, but… todo bien! (all fine!)


Key things – the copal wood they use, once carved, takes about 2 years to dry and cure. Think about that. Someone spends weeks carving a jaguar, then it sits and waits for 2 years, before it re-enters the process. After the curing, they spend a lot of time patching the cracks, again with shims of copal, and then putty. After a lot of sanding, the pieces are ready for painting – which takes another 2-3 months.

When we saw the finished products, it was beyond amazing. The sheer beauty of the pieces truly elicited emotional responses (awe, speechlessness, tears). The price tag for say a 24” jaguar was 130,000 pesos. That’s somewhere near $8000 USD. Totally worth it if you have the money and the passion / appreciation. Some of the pieces we saw curing were 5X the size of that jaguar. So maybe the price of a Lexus. But again, the sheer beauty of this artwork and work that goes into it, makes the price tag completely worth it. The tour is free, though one should give a propina (tip)!

Japanese business principles in Mexico?!

We had a Oaxacan lunch and were thinking to stop at another church on the way back into Oaxaca city, but the shadows were growing long, so we just took the “Walrus” bus (Automorsa) back into town. It was great to have a local be our guide for the day, to experience the valley villages outside the normal tourist track. And we made a new friend! Thank you, Jody!

If you want to contact Jody for Spanish lessons or tour advice, reach out to her here.

2018 27 noviembre