Our Tours

Artisans of Oaxaca
(For tour price and other information, please see the Trip Details sidebar on this page)

Potters, weavers, woodcarvers and more, a journey into the world of creative artisans from Oaxaca's three valleys.

Oaxaca is legendary for its rooted cultures and the folk art born of these cultures. Our tour is an excellent introduction to the artisans of Oaxaca valley, from potters and blacksmiths, to weavers and basket twiners. We'll take you into Oaxaca's three valleys; Ocotlan, Tlacolula and Etla, as well as explore the colonial city itself, exploring villages, visiting artisans workshops and getting a taste of the diversity of arts that thrive throughout Oaxaca. We'll meet both recognized masters like Angelica Vazquez and Carlo Magno Pedro as well as less known crafts people who create fine baskets, nativity scenes from re-cycled garbage or delicate angles from sheets of tin.

Tour Itinerary by Day:
B=Breakfast, L=Lunch, D=Dinner included in tour price.

Day 1, (L) Welcome to Oaxaca! Today we meet this colonial city and some of the artisans who make it diverse, dynamic and colorful. We'll visit the workshops of a weaver, a tin smith and graffiti artists turned designers. We'll enjoy an engaging walking tour through the historic district and have a private tour of the one of a kind Museo Textile of Oaxaca. This institution works with weavers throughout the state and brings in textiles from throughout the world exhibit. Evening in Oaxaca.

Day 2, (L) Home to many thousand weavers, the culturally rich Zapotec village of Teotitlan del Valle is the largest weaving village in Mexico. We'll visit a fine tapestry weaver, a natural dyer and even a crafter of ceremonial bees wax candles as well as having a look at the 13 saints in the venerable town church. Then lunch! For food is art as well in Teotitlan and we'll enjoy a fine, home cooked meal in the shade of an arbor. Then to a village that has been doing pottery a millennia or two (!) to meet a family of deeply rooted potters pushing the edges of tradition with new ideas in ancient clay. Evening in Oaxaca.

Day 3, (L) To market, to market! The Friday market tradition of Ocotlan is one of Oaxaca's greatest. It is life over flowing and we'll throw ourselves into hub bub. This is also an area of amazing artisans and we'll visit Jose Garcia, a pottery who has been blind for years but creates with more passion than ever- his home and courtyard a fairy tale land of his clay sculptures. Also the backstrap weavers of Jalietza who are the last traditional backstrap weavers in the Oaxaca valleys, and old-time machete and sword making blacksmiths with their flying hammers. Evening in Oaxaca.

Day 4, (L)   We begin the day in an unusual way, visiting creative artisans who take one of the city's most abundant resources, garbage, and turn it all variety of creative and fascinating objects. Then we meet an artisan who creates beautiful folk art from a less abundant resource, wood. And finally a visit to one of Oaxaca's best known artisan villages, San Bartolo Coyotepec, home of black pottery. We'll meet a contemporary master and one of the last old time potters. Evening in Oaxaca.

Day 5, (L) Atzompa is perhaps Oaxaca's oldest pottery village. It is also one of the most creative and this morning we'll meet Angelica Vazquez, a pottery doing some of the most interesting contemporary traditional clay work in Mexico. We'll also travel into the rolling hills on the edge of Oaxaca valley to the seldom visited village of La Union. Here, in small adobe houses shaded by mesquite trees, we meet artisans who carve wonderful wooden figures. Evening in Oaxaca.

All itineraries subject to change without notice.