Chilapa de Álvarez

I arrived in Chilapa on a Sunday morning at seven-thirty, which turned out to be late. The market was already operating at full density by the time I parked — if “parked” is the right word for leaving a car on the edge of a field because the streets around the center were completely impassable. From two blocks away I could hear it: the overlapping commerce of a highland market town where hundreds of people from the surrounding communities have converged for a day of trade that has been happening here in one form or another for longer than the colonial city has existed.

Chilapa sits in the Montaña region of Guerrero, the highland indigenous heartland of the state. The Montaña is Nahua-speaking primarily, but the trade area around Chilapa draws Mixtec communities from the south and Tlapanec (Me’phaa) communities from the east. On a Sunday, the market materializes all three in the same space, and the result is a linguistic and cultural density that I found genuinely overwhelming in the best possible sense.

The Market

The market spreads from the central plaza outward through the surrounding streets in a way that has its own internal logic, which I failed to understand for the first forty minutes. There is a logic — the produce vendors are here, the dried goods are there, the hardware is somewhere else — but it is not legible at first glance, and I gave up trying to decode it and simply walked.

I got lost within four minutes. By “lost” I mean that I stopped being able to locate myself relative to the plaza or the car or any fixed reference point, because the market stalls were dense enough and the streets narrow enough and the crowd sufficient that the city’s normal navigational cues had been replaced by the market’s own geography. This is not a complaint. The losing-of-oneself in a market of this scale is part of what a market of this scale offers.

The basketwork vendors were the first thing that stopped me. Nahua communities from the sierra come down with palm baskets in sizes ranging from small enough to fit in a pocket to large enough to carry a week’s corn, woven in patterns that are specific to particular communities. I spent fifteen minutes looking at baskets before I was redirected by smell — the dried chile section was close, and the aroma of mulato and pasilla and ancho in volume is one of the more arresting things I know.

The Lacquerware

I had been told about the jícaras of Chilapa — the lacquered gourds — before I came, but the description had not prepared me for the actual sight of a vendor’s stall covered in them. Jícara production here involves a technique of applying successive layers of mineral pigments bound with chia or other oils, burnished between coats, building up a depth of color and finish that looks more like enamel than lacquer. The designs are typically black-ground with figures in red, yellow, and white: birds, flowers, geometric patterns, occasional scenes of daily life.

The quality varies by vendor. Some of the stalls have machine-produced imitations — the gloss is too uniform, the designs too regular. But the stalls with the real handmade lacquerware are immediately distinguishable, and they tend to be run by older women from the communities where the technique is practiced, who will negotiate price with the unhurried confidence of people who know their work is worth what they are asking.

I found one of these stalls in the interior of the market after twenty minutes of wandering. A woman had perhaps forty pieces laid out on a cloth, ranging from small tasting bowls to large decorative pieces. I looked at everything and settled on a medium bowl with a bird design in red and yellow on black ground. The price was higher than I had planned to spend. We agreed on something in the middle. I have no regrets.

The Tamales

At some point in the mid-morning, having failed to find the exit I was looking for, I discovered a section of the market where women were selling food from clay pots placed on low tables. Tamales: oaxacan-style, wrapped in banana leaf, filled with chicken in red chile sauce. I sat on a plastic stool under a tarp and ate two and then asked for a third and was handed a cup of atole — a warm corn-based drink — without asking for it. The tamale woman’s granddaughter was running the money while the woman herself managed the pot, and when I paid I apparently gave the girl too much change and there was a small negotiation between grandmother and granddaughter about the arithmetic, conducted in Nahuatl, which resolved in my favor.

I found the car eventually.

Getting There

Chilapa is about 90km east of Chilpancingo, the state capital of Guerrero. Second-class buses run from Chilpancingo regularly, approximately two hours. The road climbs into the highlands and is spectacular. Come on a Sunday; the weekday market is a fraction of the size. Give yourself a full morning and do not plan anything for the afternoon — you will be usefully exhausted.