Mexico, Central & South America > Mexico > other areas of Mexico > Patzcuaro > Arts and crafts > Articles > In Search of the Mexican Utopia

In the distance, pinpoints of light appear around the contours of a dark centre. I am in the state of Michoacan, in western Mexico, and this is the Lago de Patzcuaro, the liquid heart of some 20 lakeside villages. Back in the 1540s, they inspired a Spanish bishop to attempt to create a perfect society. Since those days, Patzcuaro’s name has had quite different associations, namely with the spectacular Day of the Dead celebrations in which Catholic and indigenous beliefs fuse. As I’m here in Spring, I’ll miss the evocative, candlelit vigils but as they are now said to have tipped into extreme-commercialism I’m only too glad. Instead I want to find out if anything remains of Vasco de Quiroga’s ambitious attempt to make Patzcuaro nothing less than the capital of Utopia.

After cruising along the highway from Mexico City all afternoon (no colourful stories of co-travelling chickens, breakdowns, bandits or terrifying switchbacks here, just an ear-shattering video and the smell of peeled oranges), the bus swings into a wide valley. We overtake a pick-up truck in which a fully saddled horse stands alone and erect, head forward, mane blowing in the breeze, while squeezed into the front are three huddled figures in cowboy-hats. This is a sign that Michoacan is one of Mexico’s most densely agricultural states (guacamole could have been invented here given the tonnage of avocado production).

Michoacan is also home to the little known Purépechas, the only indigenous group who stood up to and rivalled the power of the Aztecs. Just a few years before Quiroga’s appointment, their population was decimated by a ruthless conquistador and it was this that fired up the bishop’s aim to implement the principles of his contemporary, Thomas More. As a result, Patzcuaro’s villages allegedly boast some of Mexico’s oldest churches. More than just spiritual stones though, Quiroga’s policies established schools, hospitals, specialised crafts, a 6-hour day, a common welfare fund. It goes without saying that mass-conversions also figured on his humanist agenda.

Patzcuaro town turns out to be picture-postcard pretty with architecture harmonious enough to have earned it World Heritage status. It feels like a remote corner of Spanish Castile where the bishop in fact hailed from. Tiled roofs overhang walls which are part white, part earthy oxblood, with sturdy wooden doors and shuttered windows overlooking narrow cobbled streets. Shop names neatly handwritten above doors spell out specific trades, from panaderia (bakery) to electricista (electrician); Starbucks or McDonalds are blissfully absent as are their Mexican equivalents. This I feel, if nothing else, is small-shop Utopia. And when I get my shoes re-heeled, I find the zapatero even handmakes impressive men’s footwear.

I soon discover that life in Utopia revolves round two gloriously arcaded squares respectively named after Quiroga and Gertrudis Bocanegra, a local woman revolutionary who met her end in front of a firing squad. Any principles of equality seem long gone, though, when I realise that the larger, more stately Plaza Quiroga with its handful of hotels, restaurants, upmarket craft-shops and 100-year old ice-cream trade is the middle-class hub. In contrast Plaza Bocanegra, dubbed Plaza Chica, is where the working classes hang out. So much for social equality.

But this is where all the night fun is, something like a mini-Mexican version of Djema El F’naa in Marrakesh without the tourists. That first evening, I feel I have been propelled onto a film-set, though no one shouts ‘hey gringa’. As Chevrolet pick-up trucks circle endlessly, bass line thumping from their giant speakers, older Purépecha women swathed in rebozos spoon out corn atole from giant cauldrons. Others dish up steaming chicken from huge sizzling pans to extended families, while hip-looking teenagers loiter at the taco-stands. Eventually, when the night chill intensifies (Patzcuaro lies at an elevation over 2,200 metres), the food-stands pack up and the punters disperse. It is early to bed in Utopia.

Next morning, by the time I emerge from a gargantuan hotel breakfast, another shift is setting up, cheered on by one of those brass bands that appear anywhere in Mexico with a population of more than 10. So, to the resounding blast of trumpets, I settle in at a shoe-shine booth in Plaza Chica. Then I wonder if I’m not hallucinating as I see dozens of stands touting fresh octopus, prawn and oyster cocktails around the square. Seafood in this pastoral region of lakes and pine-clad hills? I discover that by Mexican standards the Pacific coast is not far, a mere 4-hour bus-ride away. But enough of Patzcuaro, I’m off in a colectivo (a shared taxi van) to explore the lakeside villages.

My first stop is at the largest pre-Hispanic site of the lake, Tzintzuntzan, where the Purépechas once churned out beautiful featherwork and obsidian and copper utensils. Crafts are still big, reflected in stalls packed with woodcarvings, basketware and pottery beside the main road. Up above loom the hilltop yacatas, semi-circular stone structures, once capital of a major kingdom. Closer up they prove disappointing and I am more taken by the gnarled olive-trees in the churchyard, said to have been planted by Quiroga himself. Unusually, they survived a Spanish edict intended to destroy all Mexican olive-trees, deemed to be over-competitive with Spain’s.

Another colectivo, another village. This time it is Santa Fé de la Laguna, known for its black-glazed pottery. Here I discover the most striking sign of the More - Quiroga legacy in the form of a stone hospital which once served as a community learning centre in the days when the majority was illiterate. Today, with its handful of local women in typical Purépecha pleated skirt, apron and rebozo and men in sombreros, Santa Fé feels distinctly sleepy. The bell above the hospital tolls and I am ready to move on.

One option is to continue round the lake to Erongaricuaro where, I have been told, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, André Breton and Leon Trotsky partied together back in the 1930s, with magic mushrooms allegedly on the menu. Instead I choose Ihuatzio which I have seen from the hilltop above Patzcuaro across an inlet of the lake. The main attraction of this hamlet is a couple of pyramids which turn out to be immaculately restored and in an idyllic lakeside site backed by hills, about a kilometre’s walk from the access road. It is silent apart from the wind in the pines and the chatter of small birds; history feels close in this remote “place of coyotes”, the meaning of Ihuatzio. After a chat with the amiable guardian who obviously does not see too many visitors, I stroll back along the dirt road to the village.

That is when I meet Magdaleno, a wizened little man with sparkling eyes, about three teeth, a battered straw-hat and sandals that only just hold together around dusty toes that look centuries-old. “Are you from Europe?” he asks politely in Spanish. I tell him, yes, from England. “Ah, over there” he says smiling and gesturing behind him over a hill. “How did you get here?” he continues. I tell him I took a plane to Mexico City and, in turn gesture over a different hill. “No no” he interrupts, “Mexico City’s over THERE!” and he points to yet another hill. Talk about a sense of geography.

Then comes a moment of pure poetry as Magdaleno starts to recite, in perfectly pronounced English, a string of words he has learned “in book, at home”. Sun – moon – sky – clouds – wind – rain – bird. The words roll off his tongue while he gazes intently skywards. He tells me how as he only spoke Purépecha at home he learnt Spanish at school, which he left at the age of 13. Now 73, he is out collecting firewood, yet obviously happy as Larry. Utopia? It’s all in the mind.

A version of this was first published in the Sunday Telegraph

• More from Fiona Dunlop
• More on the same theme