The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Patzcuaro

Día de los Muertos in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán

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A typical roadside in the Lake Patzcuaro region, Michoacan

Remember my trip to Patzcuaro? It was a research for an article on Día de Los Muertos there. The article was just published American Way magazine, American Airlines’ in-flight publication.

Check it out here.

And now, since I’m currently sick, I’m going to go back to sipping manzanilla and ordering groceries online from Superama. But I can’t pick anything too crazy, because then they might not have it, even though it appears right there on the screen. (They let you order it, and then they call and say, “Señora Lesley? No tenemos espinacas. Lechuga romana está bien?”)

If you know of any homeopathic ways to relieve sinus pressure, I’m all ears.

Moody, magical Patzcuaro Michoacan

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Patzcuaro sky

This sounds kinda dorky, but one of my secret pleasures in life is contemplating the clouds. (I’m actually a wee bit of a closet hippie.) When I lived in Boston, I couldn’t get over how fast the clouds moved. They were like trains, pushed this way and that by the wind.

In Patzcuaro during the rainy season — which is now — the clouds are so amazingly beautiful, they’re like people, almost. They’re grayish and menacing, and they hover over the mountains as if to say, “We all know who’s really in charge here.”

In my hierarchy of Patzcuaro beauty, the clouds come first; then the mountains, then the lakes, and then maybe the cornstalks that grow all over the side of the road. And then maybe the amazing loaves of crusty, caramel-brown bread that sit in the bakeries.

(Can you tell she’s in love?)

We jetted off to Patzcuaro just for a night this weekend. It was my second visit there, and thankfully I didn’t have a stomach bacteria this time. Joy and her husband invited us — they’d visited Patzcuaro a few weeks ago, and were going back to buy a copper vase they’d seen in Santa Clara del Cobre, which sells all sorts of great copper handicrafts.

In Patzcuaro, we stayed at the Hotel Ixhi, which was nice even if the staff was a little disorganized. The views there couldn’t be beat:

Hotel Ixhi views

Hotel Ixhi views

Hotel Ixhi patio view

We wandered around Patzcuaro’s historic Centro for a few hours, and had wine on Ixhi’s porch as the sun went down. On Sunday morning we drove to Santa Clara del Cobre, and I fought the urge to buy a copper sink. Although I really really want one in my house someday.

Sweetbread for sale in Patzcuaro's Plaza Grande

Sweetbread for sale in Patzcuaro's Plaza Grande

A street in Santa Clara del Cobre

A street in Santa Clara del Cobre

A stall from Patzcuaro's Sunday market

A stall from Patzcuaro's Sunday market

Patzcuaro market stall

Crayton and I also bought a piece of art from La Mano Grafica, a cool gallery next to the Basilica. It’s a print from Artemio Rodriguez, a Michoacan native who spent some time in L.A. (His exhibition space is in Patzcuaro.) Didn’t realize this until I got home, but he’s the same artist who did the woodcuts for Dagoberto Gilb’s book Woodcuts of Women, which is one of my favorite books ever.

Artemio Rodriguez print

We drove through a horrible rainstorm on the way back, but overall, it was a perfect weekend trip.

Still thinking about those clouds…

Patzcuaro sky

Patzcuaro sky

Highway clouds