We have always felt the trip to Mata Ortiz is a major part of buying and enjoying the pottery. Just getting there is an adventure in itself. The two of us have driven the 1500 mile round trip from North County San Diego to Mata Ortiz and back in an old Nissan 300 Zx (absolutely not recommended) and our present Jeep Cherokee that so far has been able to manage the roads. We cross the the Laguna mountain range near San Diego and enter the desert, sinking below sea level at Ocotillo, California, while often hitting 110 degrees around Yuma, Arizona.
To encourage us on the trip we buy ice cream and chew ice right through Gila Bend and into Tucson, Benson and then south to Bisbee, to the border town of Douglas Arizona and into downtown Agua Prieta. No sweat, this is the easy part of the trip. Once into Mexico, the road narrows, becomes full of pot holes (an aptly named phrase) and takes us over two sets of Mountain ranges, and into Nueves Casas Grande. A newly built French road takes us from outside the smaller town of Casas Grande to Mata Ortiz where we see an adobe mud village spread out on a flat plain.
In a valley at almost 4500 feet with one river, the Palanque, banked by the cottonwoods alongside it, is Mata Ortiz, poor looking until one gets to see the homes up close. When you finally get out of your vehicle and step inside a home you enter a world of pottery magic: pottery on beds, religious articles all around, plastic flowers, big dolls, physically beautiful people, simple surroundings, much warmth. Mata Ortiz is the center for some of the best potters in the world. As you go from home to home hoping the pots you buy don't break on the craters that are part of any passage through the village, you feel lucky to be part of this community even for a short while.
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