Tianguis de Tlacolula

We decided to check out the Tianguis - the big weekly market - in Tlacolula today. The town isn't known for any particular crafts, but there artisans of other towns are said to bring their wares to Tlacolula on Sundays.

It was a pretty bus ride out and back, about an hour each way, with most of the hour back taken up trying to understand a rather drunk gentleman across the aisle. He partly wanted to talk to some gringos (he spent some time in Arizona a while back, I guess), but mostly he wanted to trade some of his moonshine for some of our mezcal. If Mexican Spanish is hard to understand in general because of the speed and slurring, it doesn't hold a candle to drunken Mexican Spanish.

Unfortunately there wasn't much in the way of unique crafts at the market, although it was fun to wander around. Erica checked out a few leather satchels and was interested by some colorful woven shopping bags, but didn't settle on anything today. There was also some black and green pottery from regional towns and some beautifully painted gourds and bowls, but nothing that really grabbed us. We had been hoping to see weaving, but will have to go to the source, I guess.

We did see a lovely cathedral, the interior of which was completely covered with painted wooden carvings, trim and statutes. And we picked up some different mezcal from the Pensamiento ("Contemplation")
distillery that has been operating outside Tlacolula for over 70 years. After many taste tests, including joven (un-aged), coco (coconut), cafe (coffee), granadilla (passion fruit), manzana (apple), and frutas (kind of a fruit punch), we settled on a bottle of joven, a mini bottle of frutas and a bottle of anejo (aged) which has a lot of smoky flavor to it. Interestingly, they also sold a flavor called Viagra, which had herbs of undisclosed origin in the bottle and which in smaller sizes was labeled "afrodisiaco." This type of mezcal, the vendor assured us, has all the same properties as the little blue pills.

Of course, we also bought some bread - all the essentials!

And as an added bonus.... Lucha Libre! Last night we could hear some sort of announcing taking place in the plaza of the church next door. We wandered over and, sure enough, inside a temporary wrestling ring two co-ed pairs of masked wrestlers were mixing it up for a crowd of relatively subdued adults and extremely excited kids. The kids in particular seemed to love to hate one of the male wrestlers, who wore a white mask with a red mohawk and long white tassles. None of the action shots came out all that well, unfortunately. (In the picture, the white-masked wrestler is kicking - well, pretending to kick - his buddy, much to the dismay of the young 'uns.)

By the way, this is the church, the Basilica de la Soledad. It's famous for the appearance on a box within its walls of the image of the Virgin Mary. The box is still housed inside. Really beautiful and intricate carvings on the facade, not done justice at all by the photograph.