Tlalpujahua

Tlalpujahua climbs a steep Michoacan hillside in red tile and white stucco, and it has lived two lives. The first was gold: the Dos Estrellas mine here was among the world's richest in the early twentieth century, until a catastrophic 1937 mudslide of mine tailings buried a large part of the town and ended the boom - the disaster is remembered at the half-buried church of the Virgen del Carmen, whose tower still rises from the debris field. The second life is Christmas. From the 1960s, the town's workshops turned to blowing glass spheres, and today Tlalpujahua and neighbouring El Oro produce ornaments by the tens of millions, exporting worldwide; the Feria de la Esfera from September to December turns the entire place into a lit, glittering market where visitors watch glass spun over flame, silvered, dipped and hand-painted with snowflakes, saints and whole nativities. The rest of the year the parish of San Pedro y San Pablo, its enormous carved facade, the mine museum and the pine ridges above make a quieter but still handsome day.

History

The name comes from the Nahuatl Tlalpujahuac, "spongy land". Gold was mined here before the Spanish came, and they rediscovered the mines by 1558; in 1937 a landslide of mud and mine debris buried about a third of the town. In the 1960s Joaquín Muñoz Orta began making Christmas ornaments, and about 150 small workshops now make them (Wikipedia, Tlalpujahua).

The main sights

• The ornament workshops - glass blown, silvered and painted by hand.
• The Esfera fair - September to December, the town in full glitter.
• The buried church - the 1937 disaster's memorial.
• The mining heritage - Dos Estrellas museum and hillside town.

When to go

October and November for the fair at full strength without the last-minute December crush; workshops run year-round for calmer visits.

What to expect

Fair-season weekends jam the narrow streets and parking; arrive early or stay the night. Ornaments are fragile - buy boxed and pack carefully. Streets are steep; shoes matter.

Nearby

El Oro's mining architecture is minutes away; the monarch butterfly sanctuaries of Angangueo lie an hour west in season.

Key facts