Our Tours

Day of the Dead and Festival Arts of Oaxaca . . .
October 25 - November 3, 2008
(For tour price and other information, please see the Trip Details sidebar on this page)
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Visit potters, weavers, graveyards, house altars and more all under the ambiance of Oaxaca's most colorful festival time. . .

Our travels will take us into rural Mexico and into the homes and workshops of craftspeople, cooks and artisans who create the items that are necessary to make a festival happen, ever surrounded by the celebration of Todos Santos or Day of the Dead. We’ll visit the potter who makes the stew pots, the cook who makes the stew, the baker who makes the sweet breads, the candle maker who makes the ceremonial candles- (but we’ll skip the butcher who gets the turkeys ready for stew).  We’ll visit with mescal brewers and chocolate millers, we’ll look for the nervous men who make the fireworks, and visit the piñata maker.

We travel into the hills of Oaxaca during the most beautiful time of year.

And of course, this being Day of the Dead, the annual celebration of the return of the souls of the deceased, we’ll visit the bright graveyards to see each and every tomb adorned with flowers, candles, sugar cane, oranges…In every household we visit there will be an altar piled high with food, scented by copal incense and the memories of the dead.

And since everyone is coming for the party, living and dead, this is the biggest feast you can imagine. Please come prepared to eat. There will be tamales, stews, corn beverages, hot chocolate with almond and cinnamon, mescal, sweet breads, fruits and the ever present and unsurpassable fresh made tortilla (we’ll even give tortilla making a try).

Our travels will take us first into the Mixteca highlands where we will immerse ourselves in a the large Saturday market in Tlaxiaco. Our plaza-front hotel offers us ringside seats. We will visit remote and crumbling convents, hearing exploding rockets in the distance as the dead are called home. We will enjoy a rural feast of simple food on a swept earth patio under the shade of a fruit tree with a country family where the mother is a weaver, the grandfather a potter and the father a farmer, leather smith, carpenter and mason.

Fine potters, like Angelica Vazquez.

Then we travel to the town of Mitla, the center of which is marked by the famous Zapotec palaces of the same name, with some of the most ornate rockwork in Mesoamerica. Mitla means “place of the dead” and so is a fitting place to spend the most important days of this festival. We will visit the cemetery, partake in a local feast and the sharing of food. We’ll meet town craftspeople who make such things as paper ornaments and piñatas. If the baker and cheese maker are home we’ll visit them as well, trying their wares and learning how they go about their crafts. We’ll also visit the neighboring village of Teotitlan to visit a ceremonial candle maker and see how fine wool rugs are woven. We will travel across the valley to San Marcos to visit potters who make the best cookware in the area. And we’ll head up the hill to the mineral springs of Hierve el Agua to take in the spectacular views, share a meal with a family of basket makers and stop by a mescal still to learn how cactus is turned into firewater (and try a bit as well).

Altars are filled with the foods that the dead loved.

Then, as our trail comes to an end, we settle ourselves into the beautiful city of Oaxaca where we enjoy the urban pleasures of fine museums, lovely parks, shops filled with delights and a plethora of fine restaurants to tempt you (if you are still hungry after so much feasting).

DAY BY DAY ITINERARY
B=breakfast, L=lunch, D=dinner included in trip cost

Day 1, Oct. 25 (D) Arrive in Oaxaca for our first meeting at 6pm followed by dinner on the town. Evening in Oaxaca

Tlacolula market

Day 2, Oct. 26 (BL) After breakfast we head to the Tlacolula market, one of Oaxaca’s largest and most interesting markets, and today it will be going full tilt as people from the surrounding villages come in to buy food and flowers for the Day of the Dead celebrations. After getting our fill of the market’s excitement we will retreat to the sanctuary of a silent, tree draped cemetery, unlike any you’ve likely ever seen and a fitting place to find ourselves on our first day of travel on this Day of the Dead journey. We’ll then have a spot of lunch and learn how Oaxaca’s famous firewater, mescal, is distilled. We’ll round off the day with a visit to the peaceful ruins of the Zapotec ceremonial center of Yagul before returning to Oaxaca city for the evening. Dinner on your own.

Day 3, Oct. 27 (L) After you have breakfast on your own this morning we head to the Zapotec pottery village of San Marcos to visit a family that has been making cooking ware for 200 generations. We’ll see how they create their beautiful, stone polished pottery that is used for cooking stew, boiling coffee, toasting tortillas and a hundred and one other uses. Then we travel across the valley to the Zapotec mega-weaving village of Teotitlan del Valle, a town of 5,000 weavers. We’ll have lunch at a weaver’s home and even give tortilla making a try. We’ll see how rugs are woven, learn about natural dyeing methods used by  some weavers in the village and visit with ceremonial candle makers to learn how they ply this important local trade. In the afternoon we’ll return to Oaxaca and your evening is free to explore the city.

Day 4, Oct. 28 (L) We head to the ruined palaces of Mitla this morning, once known as the “Place of the Dead”. Here we will see the fabulously intact places with their ornate stone fretwork. Then we head into the hills and to the little hamlet of Roaguia where we’ll visit a sweet and humble family of corn farmers and basket makers who will show us how basketry is done and feed us a simple and tasty lunch. We’ll also visit the spectacular mineral springs of Hierve el Agua that are located in this town with their “frozen” water falls. In the afternoon we return to Oaxaca.

A Traditions Mexico group enjoying breakfast in the hotel in Tlaxiaco

Day 5, Oct. 29 (BLD) We will have a breakfast feast of empanadas de huitlacoche, champurrado, hojaldras and jugo de naranja, or whatever else you desire off the spoken menu at the Merced market. Then we head into the Etla valley for a visit to a hand-made paper factory and a stunningly restored turn of the century factory turned into an art school. Then our trail takes us out of the Oaxaca valley and into the Mixteca, the land of the Cloud People where we will visit the crumbling fortress monastery of Yanhuitlan and the ruined pyramids of Huamelulpan before settling into our new base camp in the bustling town of Tlaxiaco. You will be tested on the proper pronunciation of the place names we’ve visited today before you are given desert. Evening in Tlaxiaco.

Day 6, Oct. 30 (BLD)  After breakfast we head to the small Mixtec village of Cuquila to visit Emiliano Melchor. Emiliano is an old fashioned jack of all trades and a traditional farmer who cured the leather to make his sandles (which he made), built his house out of the adobe blocks he made and crafted the wooden doors. He is also the head of the small community museum in the village and will give us a tour of the museum. We will visit Emiliano’s house and meet his wife (who is a weaver) who will prepare us a good campesino lunch with beans and corn grown in Emiliano’s fields. We’ll sit around in the shade of the tree in the yard and share stories and learn how Day of the Dead is celebrated in this Mixtec community. Evening in Tlaxiaco.

Day 7, Oct. 31 (BLD) We’ll venture out into the morning market and have a breakfast of delicious (and safe!) street food- fresh hot, steaming tamales, fresh squeezed orange juice and hot chocolate with a corn base. Our path this morning takes us to the village of Tlacotepec where we will visit a basket maker who uses yucca leaves to create graceful baskets. These lovely baskets are in high demand locally for washing corn in, like a colander. Then we will take a beaten track through the hills that will deliver us to an enormous, remote, crumbling church built above another, earthquake shocked church that has almost completely crumbled, which was built with stones from Mixtec temples on the same spot. Herein is also found the cemetery of the nearby village which will be getting a whitewash for the returning festivals. This was clearly a very sacred spot. If we get there we’ll tell you why. In the afternoon we return to Tlaxiaco and will find the town more full of life than ever as merchants come in for the Saturday market. We’ll also venture to the town’s cemetery to find how this town celebrates the return of the dead, who will be flocking in this evening. Evening in Tlaxiaco.

Tlaxiaco market

Day 8, Nov. 1 (BL) Saturday is market day in Tlaxiaco and the plaza in front of our hotel will have blossomed overnight into a full-blown market. We will head out into it this morning to scavenge for a breakfast of fruit, juice, bread and fresh tortillas and to wander among the vendors and watch the world of people and goods flow around.  Once we’ve had our fill we will head toward Oaxaca city again, stopping along the way at the church of Teposculula with one of the largest outdoor chapels in Mexico, and we’ll take a peek at the village cemetery to see what is happening there. In the afternoon we return to Oaxaca city and the sights of this lovely old town in the thick of the Day of the Dead celebrations.

Day 9, Nov. 2 (LD)  This morning we’ll travel to the nearby village of Atzompa, a village of a thousand potters and Oaxaca's most productive pottery village. Here we will visit Irma Garcia Blanco, who often incorporates skeletons and the spirit of the dead in her work. She is one of the potters featured in the fabulous book, Great Masters of Mexican Folkart. Then we’ll head above the village to the hilltop home of Angelica Vasquez who has won just about every award Mexico offers for her outstanding clay work. Drawing on the rich legends of Oaxaca and the tales her grandmother told her as a child she creates narratives out of clay. She is featured in the recent Chornicle Press book "Oaxacan Ceramics". Returning to Oaxaca for a light lunch, we leave the afternoon open for any last minute exploring or shopping you may want to do. We will meet again in the evening for our final meal together and farewells. Your hotel is included this evening.

Day 10, Nov. 3 (B) This morning after breakfast (or before for some of you) catch your flights back home or continue your travels on your own.

All itineraries subject to change without notice.