Yesterday I went on an art walk to visit galleries and studios in the town of Pozos, located about an hour by bus from San Miguel.  In the 16th century silver was discovered in Pozos and by the 19th century the area had a large mining operation where silver as well as other minerals were mined.  The last mine closed in 1927. The population in the 19th century numbered of up to 80,000 people, but today it has a population of only 3000 of which 30 are foreigners.  So, much of the town is a ghost town.  Recently there have been efforts to develop an arts community in Pozos (remind you of Pawtucket?) and a few pioneering artists have located there.  There were 24 venues open on the art walk - some were artists studios, some were galleries, and some were shops offering handmade musical instruments made by some of the local Indians who have continued Pre-Hispanic traditions.  Pozos has also been the host to groups of musicians interested in studying these instruments and the musical traditions.

The town lacks color!  The dusty buildings are all painted white, which compared with San Miguel and Guanajuato, was a bit eerie.  Especially because so many buildings were vacant.



Pozos is located at 7500 feet in altitude, 1000 ft. higher than San Miguel.  Climbing hills was slow going!



Here are some of the really rustic doors in Pozos.





What a delight it was to enter some of these buildings to discover an art gallery!



There are a couple of hotels in Pozos in beautifully restored buildings.  Below is a room in one of these hotels.



Incredibly, there were several very nice restaurants with art galleries and great food!  In the market I got an afternoon snack of frozen strawberries topped with whipped cream.



When I returned to San Miguel, the Jardin was full of activity.  There were a great many vendors on all four sides of the Jardin selling colorful paper clowns, paper flowers, and colored eggs.  The eggs were hollow and filled with confetti, then tissue paper was pasted over the hole.  There were thousands of these eggs for sale!  Families and kids filled the area.  The kids, clutching bags of these eggs, chased around hitting each other on the head with these eggs!  There were having great fun!  The egging activity went on all day and into the night!  The walks were covered with broken egg shells and colorful confetti.  In the photo below, the fellow is handing the girls a bag of eggs.







This young fellow just got egged by his friends.  I got egged twice while taking these pictures!