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paracho
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3459
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: paracho (in reply to liv)
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I would not recommend road travel anywhere in Michoacan, the Mexican state where Paracho is located. Paracho is located about 100 kilometers due west of the state capital of Morelia. In fact, I would avoid road travel altogether in Mexico these days.
The US Department of State's Travel Warning for Mexico advises travelers to defer all non-essential travel to the state of Michoacan except the cities of Morelia and Lazaro Cardenas (by aircraft), and one should exercise caution in those two cities. The Travel Warning notes: "Attacks on Mexican government officials, law enforcement and military personnel, and other incidents of TCO-related violence, have occurred throughout Michoacán."
Not worth the risk for a guitar.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jun. 21 2013 10:53:25
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3431
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: paracho (in reply to liv)
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The narco cartel warfare in Michoacan is further complicated in the vicinity of Paracho. Some villages in the hinterlands of Michoacan have been disaffected from the mainstream culture of Mexico since the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Many were brought into the mainstream by Vasco de Quiroga, the Bishop of Michoacan in the 17th century, but some remained recalcitrant.
I first went to Paracho 56 years ago. I took a taxi from Uruapan. There is a village about halfway between the two. Both going and coming, children stood beside the road and threw rocks at the taxi. It wasn't casual. They scored several telling hits. The cab driver said it happened every time he took that road.
The last time I was in Paracho was in 2006. I drove a rental car. There was no rock throwing, but I was certainly not inclined to stop at that village. It seems less overtly hostile to outsiders, after decades on a main road. But there are villages further out in the sticks that set up roadblocks and charge tolls, or rob travelers. This is in addition to the drug cartel violence.
In 2006 I stayed in a luxurious hotel in Uruapan. I asked the guy on the desk where to go for a drink in the evening. He recommended the Bar Sol y Sombra, at the western edge of downtown. I went. There was a great band, a number of well dressed couples, good drinks, and a few single women willing to dance with an old gringo. A pleasant evening.
A couple of months later I read in the New York Times that a man showed up at the Bar Sol y Sombra one evening with a burlap bag. He rolled five severed human heads out onto the dance floor, and said, "Maybe that will teach you cabrones to play both sides of the fence."
The bartender was quoted as saying, "It pretty well ruined the whole evening."
Check out this foro thread (scroll down the page) for a personal experience of mine in 2010:
http://tinyurl.com/kdp68ow
RNJ
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Date Jun. 21 2013 18:01:41
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3431
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: paracho (in reply to keith)
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I was last in Paracho in December 2006. I visited Carlos Piña, the Rubios, Francisco Navarro, Salvador Castillo, Arturo Huipe and Abel Garcia.
Huipe was the only one who had a first quality guitar available to play. I ended up buying a cedar/cocobolo "Fleta" model for $1800. I would say it is on the borderline between a top end student model and a concert guitar. It is loud, has a good tone, but not as much tonal range as a concert classical.
At Castillo's shop I ran into an American pro flamenco player from Chicago, and his cajon player. He was there to pick up a blanca he had ordered from Castillo, on the recommendation of Richard Brune. He planned to install electronics for gigging. We played the new guitar a bit. It was a good guitar, but didn't really excite me. The front of Castillo's shop opens onto the main drag, and it's not the best place in the world to be trying out a guitar.
Garcia had no guitars available to play, he said at first. I finally wheedled him into letting me play the short scale spruce/Brazilian he made for his daughter. I had heard Carlos Bernal, the Mexican classical player who teaches at a conservatory in Switzerland and concertizes in Europe on a Garcia guitar.
I ended up calling Garcia the next day, and went back to order a spruce/Brazilian classical. I waited 2 1/2 years and paid $4,500. Trilogy guitars in Los Angeles is asking $8,000 for Garcia's instruments these days.
My Garcia is world class. I play it as much as I do my '73 Romanillos. The Romanillos is a better guitar, but not by a huge amount. Garcia studied with Romanillos, attending his course in Spain twice.
The top class luthiers in Paracho, Navarro, Castillo and Garcia are like their peers the world over. It is probably unlikely that you will find one of their best guitars on a casual visit to their shop. In fact you probably won't even get in the door at Garcia's. They have a full list of orders, and their best instruments get shipped out as soon as they are finished.
But a visit to Paracho can be fun, if you don't get killed or kidnapped. You won't find anywhere else where there are as many guitar makers in one place. The output ranges from junk to world class, with all degrees in between.
I might, or might not, take another trip to Paracho in the near future. I speak Spanish fluently, and have travelled all over Mexico for more than forty years. But I wouldn't take responsibility for taking anyone else with me, and I certainly would not recommend traveling in Mexico at present. Things can be going along just fine, and then suddenly the sh1t hits the fan.
RNJ
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Date Jun. 22 2013 15:18:43
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FredGuitarraOle
Posts: 898
Joined: Dec. 6 2012
From: Lisboa, Portugal
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RE: paracho (in reply to liv)
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A work colleague of my mother made an amazing journey three years ago. He went BY BIKE all the way from Alaska to Patagonia. He made most of the journey all by himself, through the most remote and spectacular places you can imagine. It took him about a year and a half to complete and, as he said, it was the journey of his life.
He created a blog and it was his journal, where he wrote the tales of his adventure and posted some amazing photos. He had no cellphone with him and only updated the blog whenever he had an internet connection along the way.
Anyway, to the point. He made it all the way through Mexico without a single problem. In Colombia (the country he liked the most) he was advised more than once, both by locals and foreigners, to avoid certain roads because of the extremely high risks. Avoiding those roads would force him to make big detours. He took that chance more than one time and always made it through without the slightest trouble. Amazingly, the only place were he had problems and feared for his safety was in the United States.
I'm not trying to say it is safe to travel through Mexico and I'm perfectly aware of all those dangers you guys are talking about. What I'm saying is that the way you travel through such places makes all the diference.
By the way, I'm also not saying that someone should visit Mexico by bike. I just wrote this because I thought it would be interesting to show another perpesctive on traveling through complicated places.
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Date Jun. 22 2013 17:15:01
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3431
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: paracho (in reply to FredGuitarraOle)
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I traveled several thousand miles by motorcycle in Mexico over a period of several years. My last motorcycle trip in Mexico was a long time ago, so I'm not claiming what I'm about to say is still the case.
You used to get a lot more personal interaction with the average Mexican when you traveled by motorcycle. A well dressed tourist traveling by car was regarded as a member of an exploitative social class. People didn't imagine you would travel by motorcycle if you could afford a car. So arriving on a bike usually got a more open and friendly reaction from the average person.
But Mexico now is far more dangerous than it was years ago. As I said, things can go great for quite a while, then suddenly you can end up dead like the Dutch kid in the link I posted earlier in this thread.
It breaks my heart. The great majority of Mexicans are wonderful, friendly people. The food, the architecture, the history, the scenery, the music, the lifestyle in general hold many, many pleasant memories for me. But I'm reluctant to go now.
RNJ
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Date Jun. 22 2013 19:03:00
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3459
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: paracho (in reply to FredGuitarraOle)
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quote:
I'm not trying to say it is safe to travel through Mexico and I'm perfectly aware of all those dangers you guys are talking about. What I'm saying is that the way you travel through such places makes all the diference.
I understand what your driving at, Fred, and I appreciate your observation that how one travels can make a difference. (Although I wouldn't go so far as to say it "makes all the difference.") I was on a temporary, three-month assignment for the U.S. State Department at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia in 2000, when Colombia was the kidnapping capital of the world. The FARC guerrillas had a deal with ordinary criminals in South Bogota, which was a very dangerous part of the city. Ordinary criminals would kidnap both Colombians and foreigners in South Bogota, then they would take them to a point about 25 kilometers south of Bogota and turn them over to the FARC guerrillas for a sum of cash. The FARC would then transport the kidnapped victims to their jungle headquarters and demand a ransom from their families and employers.
The situation today is much better in Colombia, and it was better three years ago when your mother's colleague made the trip, than it was when I was serving in Bogota. Nevertheless, it is still dangerous in certain areas, just as Mexico is very dangerous in most areas for travel by land transportation. I would say that your mother's colleague was very lucky. Part of his traveling unscathed was no doubt due to traveling relatively inconspicuously on his bike, i.e., not standing out in a crowd. Nevertheless, quite a few Americans have been kidnapped for ransom, and some have been simply killed outright to make a statement, and they were picked up while inconspicuously traveling on roads, particularly in the state of Sinaloa. Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, has the second highest number of narco cartel killings in Mexico.
What I'm driving at is that there will always be some who chance it and make it through with no problem. But luck has a lot to do with it. Your mother's colleague might have traveled through areas at a time when there were no planned kidnappings or killings. But he just as easily could have traveled in an area where the narcotraficantes had decided to pick up the next gringo they found, kill him, and put his head on a pike, just to show that they could do so with impunity and the Mexican authorities could do nothing about it. It has happened, and it will happen again. I would not want to entrust my life with the moods and plans of the narcotraficantes on any particular day I might be passing through their territory.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jun. 22 2013 19:35:03
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