Teotitlan de Valle

We stepped out of the car to cool desert air scented with fragrant woodsmoke on an afternoon trip to Teotitlan de Valle, 30 km east of Oaxaca city. Oaxaca state is full of different types of artisans, and many nearby villages specialize in one type of craft. In this pueblo, the families use large wooden looms to weave tapetes, or for those of you who don´t habla español, rugs . The homestead of Don Isaac Vasquez, Master Weaver, is situated around a brightly painted courtyard full of flowering trees. To the back of the courtyard various dyes made from natural materials (including bugs called Cochineal, mosses, mesquite seed pods and indigo) bubbled in huge vats over wood fires while skeins of freshly dyed yarn the size of my torso dried from the rafters. It was hard to observe the simplicity of the lifestyle, the beauty of the tapetes and the warm presence of the people and the surrounding mountains without wanting to give up my modern life forever and join the apparent utopia of Teotitlan. But such amorous impressions are hardly apt to last if followed through upon, so I promptly left behind my sketchbook and headed back to Oaxaca City.
Coda: We made it halfway back, to the town of El Tule, where grows a cyprus tree so large that 47 children can hold hands around its trunk, and is locally considered one of the largest living organisms on earth. I realized my mistake and we all dutifully trooped back to retrieve my sketchbook while I melted in shame. Haven´t left it anywhere since.

-Sarah