Santa María Atzompa

Another day, another artisan's Pueblo. This time it was just slightly northwest of Oaxaca at Santa María Atzompa which is known mainly for their green colored pottery. We followed the somewhat convoluted directions from the GPS and found the village. Santa María Atzompa used to be a separate village from Oaxaca but urban sprawl has made it all part of the present "Big City". We followed the sign to the Mercado de Artasans and found a large Co-Op building adjoining a small restaurant. Each of a hundred or so artisans had their own rack filled with their wares. Everything had a tag on it with the rack number and the price. There was a central cash area where you paid for whatever you purchased and the money was allocated to the individual artisans. Prices were very reasonable and we walked around picking out what struck our fancy. We ended up with about ten items filling three shopping bags for 320 pesos or $25. Everything is wrapped up for travel so no photos are possible but I did take some at the location.

When we left the market we stopped at one of the many car wash booths that dot the road out of the village. Three energetic young men busied themselves for a good twenty minutes washing and drying the outside and treating the tires and rubber trim. They then cleaned the door jams, the inside rim around the trunk, vacuumed the seats and carpets, treated the dash and cleaned the insides and outsides of all the windows. Norma and I sat on a couple of stools by the wall while they worked and Norma asked me what I thought they would charge. I said, "Probably 50 pesos ($4.80)" because that is what the street car washers wanted the last time they offered to wash it. I quickly revised this estimate after they started cleaning the inside and I said, "Well, maybe 100 pesos with all the extra work". I pulled a 100 peso note out of my wallet and convinced myself I would pay no more than that.

When the time came to pay I asked one of the young men how much we owed and he said twenty five pesos. The older one then called over, "No, thirty because ..." (something I did not catch). Thirty pesos! $2.36 for a combined total of one man hour labour, water, supplies and stall rental! I gave them 50 and told them to buy Coke's. The car looks great and the paint did not come off as Norma thought it might.

 When we got back to Oaxaca Norma wanted to stop to look for a particular store near the Santo Domingo Church. While I waited for her a wedding party arrived and I snapped a couple of shots. The Bridesmaid clearly outshone the Bride. The poor Bride climbed up on a short wall to pose for photographs but 90% of the cameras were still on the Bridesmaid. There should be a rule somewhere about that. At least I took her photo.