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Oaxaca Textiles, Craft + Culture Tour with Taos Wools January 2026

Posted on Thursday, January 30, 2025 | Comments Off on Oaxaca Textiles, Craft + Culture Tour with Taos Wools January 2026

This January 8-15, 2026 program is more than a tour. It includes weaving and natural dyeing Po for workshops, a visit to artisan markets, studio visits to meet makers. Immerse yourself in all that Oaxaca has to offer with travel and hands-on experiences. We are partnering with Joseph Barry and Taos Wools, located in Arroyo Seco, a charming village on the way to the Taos Ski Valley, to offer this program.

  • Visit artisan studios in Teotitlan del Valle, the tapestry weaving center of Mexico, including silk and wool weavers
  • Participate in a two-day natural dye workshop
  • Learn or enhance your skills in a three-day tapestry weaving workshop using a frame loom
  • Travel to the mountain village of Chichicapam for a one-day drop spindle (malacate) spinning demonstration, carding churro fleece
  • Wander the expansive Sunday Tlacolula Market, a confluence of art, craft and more
  • Meet a red clay potter in her famous ceramic studio
  • Enjoy a Oaxaca City grand finale dinner with our group and leaders

(No prior weaving or dyeing experience is necessary. This is open and valuable to all levels of fiber artists and fiber admirers.)

DAY 1 | Arrive, settle in & welcome! – January 8, 2026

Arrive, travel to Teotitlan del Valle on your own, at your own expense. We will provide directions from the airport via secure taxi. No host dinner at a local comedor. Overnight in Teotitlan del Valle. Meals included: None.

DAY 2 | Introduction, visit weaving cooperatives, begin dye workshop —January 9, 2026

Breakfast, introduction to the textile culture of Oaxaca with a presentation including topics of community, traditions, and culture. We will meet with two cooperatives and workshops in Teotitlan del Valle that create tapestries, clothing, and handbags. We will meet at the dye studio and begin creating naturally dyed skeins of wool. Overnight in Teotitlan del Valle. Meals included: Breakfast and lunch.

About the Natural Dye Workshop: Participants will dye a range of colors using a variety of plants and over-dyeing techniques. This includes dyeing 15 wool skeins of 10 grams each, with enough colors and materials to weave a small sampler on our weaving day. Participants should bring a notebook and pencil to take notes of the dyeing process.

DAY 3 | Natural Dye Workshop – January 10, 2026

We’ll resume the natural dye workshop to dye skeins of wool exploring locally sourced plant materials of indigo, pomegranate, wild marigold, plus cochineal. The workshop will cover chemistry in dye preparation and techniques for over-dyeing. Box lunch at dye studio. After lunch, we will visit a studio that grows silkworms. Here they spin, dye, and weave the silk into fine garments. Overnight in Teotitlan del Valle. Meals included: Breakfast and lunch.


DAY 4 | Tlacolula Market Meander, Pottery Studio Visit – January 11, 2026

After breakfast, we will spend most of the day at the amazing Sunday Tlacolula market, the once-a-week tianguis that attracts farmers, artisans, household suppliers, and everything and anything you can imagine one needs to run a household in Oaxaca. We will have lunch at a local comedor, then visit a famous red pottery studio in San Marcos Tlapazola.  Back in Teotitlan, we will start the weaving workshop. First, we will learn about warping frame looms. Overnight in Teotitlan del Valle. Meals included: Breakfast and lunch.

Tlacolula Market Candy Cart
Colorful plastic woven baskets, Tlacolula Market.
Tlacolula market scene with aprons as personal and village identity.

DAY 5 – Hand-Spinning Demonstration  — January 12, 2026

Breakfast. We will then take an excursion to the mountain village of Chichicapam to meet a family of spinners who work with only the finest quality Churro sheep wool. We will have an opportunity to spin yarn using the drop-spindle (malacate) and purchase handspun yarn. Lunch will be enroute. Back in Teotitlan, we will continue with our weaving workshop. Overnight in Teotitlan del Valle. Meals included: Breakfast and lunch.

DAY 6 | Weaving workshop— January 13, 2026

Breakfast. Morning weaving workshop until 4:00 pm– we’ll be working on the frame loom to produce a sampler or wall hanging approximately 10” x 18” using the yarns prepared during the natural dye workshop. Lunch at the weaving studio. Afternoon on your own. Overnight in Teotitlan del Valle. Meals included: Breakfast and lunch.



DAY 7 | Weaving workshop and overnight in Oaxaca– January 14, 2026

Breakfast. Morning weaving workshop to continue working on and finishing projects. Box lunch at the studio. Depart for Oaxaca, but first we stop to visit an outstanding flying shuttle loom weaver in El Tule. Finale dinner at an excellent Oaxaca restaurant.

Overnight in Oaxaca City.

DAY 8 | Hasta luego! — January 15, 2026

Breakfast. Depart on flights home from Oaxaca airport. We will help arrange taxi transportation at your own expense. Stay on additional nights and join our extensions.

What Is Included

  • 7 nights lodging
  • 6 breakfasts
  • 6 lunches
  • Grand Finale Gala Dinner in Oaxaca City
  • Van transportation
  • Complete guide and translation services
  • Natural dye, weaving, and spinning workshops, materials, and instruction
  • Artisan demonstrations
  • Conversations about textiles, culture, community
  • Authentic, locally prepared foods

The tour does NOT include airfare, taxes, tips, travel insurance, liquor or alcoholic beverages, some meals, and local transportation as specified in the itinerary. We reserve the right to substitute artisans, guides, and alter the program as needed.

Cost • $3,350 double room with private bath (sleeps 2) • $3895 single room with private bath (sleeps 1)

Extensions:

January 15: Oaxaca Walking Tour, ½ day: Visits to textile artisans and galleries, $145 per person (does not include meals or lodging) (2 people minimum needed to hold this)

January 16: Ocotlan Highway Tour, full day: Visits to villages, woodcarvers, ceramic artists, embroiderers. Includes lunch and transportation. (does not include breakfast or lodging). $195 per person. (2 people minimum needed to hold this)

How to Register:  First, complete the Registration Form and send it to us and tell us which payment method you want to use to make your deposit: Zelle (no fee) or credit card (4% fee). See below.

To Register, Policies, Procedures & Cancellations–Please Read

Reservations and Cancellations.  A $500 non-refundable deposit is required payable to Norma Schafer, Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC, to guarantee your spot. The balance is due in two equal payments. The second payment of 50% of the balance is due on or before August 15, 2025. The third 50% payment of the balance is due on or before November 1, 2025. We accept payment using a Zelle transfer (no fees) or a credit card (4% service fee). When you complete the registration form and send it to us, we will send you a request for deposit. After November 1, 2025, there are no refunds. If you cancel on or before November 1, 2025 we will refund 50% of your deposit received to date, less the $500 non-refundable reservation deposit. After that, there are no refunds.

If we cancel for whatever reason, we will offer a 100% refund of all amounts received to date, less the non-refundable deposit.

All documentation for plane reservations, required travel insurance, and personal health issues must be received 45 days before the program start or we reserve the right to cancel your registration without reimbursement.

NOTE:  If you have walking impediments or you rely on other travelers for personal assistance, then this is not the trip for you. Oaxaca city is close to 6,000 feet altitude. We travel to villages that are 7,000 feet altitude. For altitude or motion sickness, please consult your doctor and come prepared with adequate medications. We recommend that all travelers have up-to-date COVID-19 vaccinations and bring two antigen testing kits to test along the way. We also recommend RSV and Flu vaccines.

How to Register:  First, complete the Registration Form and email it to us. We will then send you a request to make your reservation deposit.

Terrain, Walking and Group Courtesy: We recommend you bring a walking stick and wear sturdy shoes. Traveling with a small group has its advantages, and also means that independent travelers will need to make accommodations to group needs and schedules. We include plenty of free time to go off on your own.

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A Writer’s Life in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca

Posted on Wednesday, January 8, 2025 | Comments Off on A Writer’s Life in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca

Oh, goodness. Where to start? Since Thursday evening, January 2, I have participated in a women’s creative writing workshop retreat in the Oaxaca village of Teotitlan del Valle. I have produced this workshop (or something like it) for the past fourteen years (minus the last two, when we took a break). We end on Wednesday morning, January 8, and I find myself digging deeper because I’m thinking about writing a memoir.


This could be considered a daunting task, but I am learning that this type of writing can come in chunks and snippets and does not need to be complete. It can be a series of essays that string together in a related and meaningful way — or not. Randomness is something I try to embrace. Maybe it’s because my brain works that way.


Our writing instructor, Marcia Meier, says that writing a memoir is more about taking things out than putting things in. She also emphasizes that most of us have several memoirs in us. You can write as many memoirs as you have had different experiences.


Different from an autobiography, which is a factual accounting, usually from birth to the time of writing and encompassing events, relationships, achievements, and challenges, a memoir focuses on specific themes, emotions, and reflections. This is a more personal and introspective approach to writing. A short memoir can be several hundred words, pages, or more. It doesn’t have to be 50-100,000 words! The key is to focus on telling a compelling and cohesive story, regardless of length.


Marcia has had over 10 books published, plus many essays, and creative works. She ran a California writer’s conference and literary press. She was a journalist, university professor, editor, teacher, and coach. Her memoir, Face, took her fifteen years to write, edit, and submit for publication. This must have been a daunting task and an inspiration for each of us. This book won the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award.

Each day, Marcia gives us writing exercises for inspiration. She reads us poetry, prose, memoirs, and fiction by familiar writers or some we have never heard of. She gives us challenges: identify an inanimate object and have it speak to you about who you are and where you live. She asks us to list our fears about our writing and anyone connected to it. What would they say or think if they read this? She gives us colored pencils and paper and instructs us to draw our dreams. She opens a box of play dough and asks us to shape something meaningful. These exercises open us up to the writing process, freeing us from constraints.



We dig deep into memoirs, creative non-fiction, and personal essays. Our participants range from novice to experienced. This year, women have come from Sydney, Australia, Oaxaca, California, Arizona, and New Mexico, to write.


We are now on day five with one more to go. This is a small, intimate group. We read what we have written to each other, giving supportive feedback. No one is critical. We are all in this together.

What participants say about Marcia Meier.

Open, gracious, and encouraging
Supportive, gentle, calm
Detailed, positive, organized
Welcoming, knowledgeable, informative
Inspiring, insightful, humorous
Expressive, honest, real

One participant says: She pulls out what we didn’t know was there. She has given me the tools and confidence to write about what makes me happy and sad. She is warm and a great instructor. Her teaching is empowering and transformative, and her style is both nurturing and stimulating.

We will consider offering this workshop in 2026 for six or seven days in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca. If you are interested in knowing more, please send me an email. We will put you on an interested list and notify you when we have more details.


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Holiday Greetings! Best of the Best Oaxaca Photo Workshop

Posted on Monday, December 23, 2024 | Comments Off on Holiday Greetings! Best of the Best Oaxaca Photo Workshop

Sending you warmest greetings from sunny, sparkly Taos, New Mexico, where we are basking in high desert winter sunshine and 50 degrees (20 degrees above average). Perfect walking weather. Global warming? Definitely!

I’m getting ready to return to Oaxaca on December 30. I won’t be complaining about the mid-70’s there. I want to thank you for a spectacular year for Oaxaca Cultural Navigator (OCN). As I focus more and more on health and well-being, I am grateful to YOU, who read and follow and shop here. And, special gratitude for Eric Chavez Santiago and his wife Elsa Sanchez Diaz who are my OCN partners. They are managing so many of the details that I no longer have the bandwidth to concentrate on. They are a blessing to me. I’m also grateful to the many artists and artisans who we know. They contribute their family history, talent, and resourcefulness to what we do, and welcome our guests with open arms and kindness.

As we close out 2024, I want to share with you the Best of the Best Photos from our October Day of the Dead Photography Workshop in Teotitlan del Valle with Luvia Lazo. Luvia had a private session with each workshop participant, and they selected the three best photos they took during our three days together. Here they are:

Andrea James, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Mai Nguyen, New York City

Sherri Kratchmer, Alberta, Canada

Ted Fahy, Ajijic, Lake Chapala, Mexico

Con Amor

Priscilla Taylor, Ajijic, Lake Chapala, Mexico

Eric Chavez Santiago, Oaxaca, Mexico

Norma Schafer, Taos, NM, and Oaxaca, Mexico

A Word From Luvia Lazo Gutierrez, Award-Winning Photographer

A long time ago, I participated in a workshop that Norma organized. She brought professional photographers from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies to Oaxaca to teach us about composition, lighting, tips, and tools for using the camera. This opportunity helped immensely to improve my approach to photography.

Over the years, I discovered the most important tool for me: Storytelling. There came a point in my career when I realized that as long as I could tell a story in a natural, honest, and sincere way, it would bring me more joy and create deeper empathy with the subjects I was portraying.

When I was invited to give this workshop, my challenge was to teach this lesson to the participants: How do we begin to see again without being influenced by everything we have learned from others? How do we start to discover our personal way of seeing the world through the lens of our cameras?

Teaching is an honor because it provides the opportunity to exchange ideas, learn, and share. During this workshop, I emphasized that we all have a story to tell and a unique way of seeing the world. The photographs that each participant took, reflected this, and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

Are you interested in our next Portrait and Street Photography Workshop in 2026 with Luvia?

Send an email and we will add you to our interested list.

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Photo Workshop Day 3: Luvia’s Grandmother +

Posted on Saturday, November 2, 2024 | Comments Off on Photo Workshop Day 3: Luvia’s Grandmother +

We met at Luvia’s photography studio at 9:30 a.m. Before that, most of us returned to the village market to take more pictures. The early morning light here is illuminating. The light plays with shadows and texture; there is so much to capture the eye. This is a daily market in Teotitlan del Valle, one of the few remaining here in indigenous culture. During Dia de los Muertos, as families buy flowers, bread, chocolate, fruit, candles to decorate graves and home altars, the market is even more resplendent.

At the studio, we send photos to Luvia’s computer and then have a look-see with a discussion about each of our works taken the day before and this morning. We were frantically editing the ones from this morning to get these ready to send. We talked about composition, cropping, lighting, finding the details, getting closer to our subjects than many of us are comfortable with. It’s an exercise in asking permission to photograph and then stepping into a space that is tighter than usual.

We began to see our world differently and with more definition.

We especially enjoyed our visit to the home of Luvia’s grandmother. She is age 78. Many women age faster here, especially the older generation who have borne and raised many children, and did everything by hand including: shucking corn from the cob, washing laundry and dishes, carrying water, preparing meals three times a day, and feeding the farm animals — chickens, goats, turkeys, cows. Each morning they walked to the market and home again throughout their lives where the daily social contact there was so important. Many ducked into the local convenience store to sip mezcal together and catch up on gossip.

Then it was home again to do everything necessary to keep an extended-family household going.

We were so happy this workshop fit into Luvia’s schedule. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker and Vogue magazines, and she has had exhibitions in the USA and Europe. Fujifilm and Leica awarded her grants as a rising star, and she will be going to New York to participate in an arts residency in 2025. Both Luvia and I agree: we do not want to hold workshops during Day of the Dead — November 1 and November 2. We want this to be quiet time with our families to reflect on meaning, loss, life and death, and to remember our loved ones.

Here are some of the photos I took that day in the market and with Luvia’s grandmother:

And here is my Day Of the Dead Altar to remember my parents. I call it my Memory Altar. It looks very much the same year after year, which is very reassuring.

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Oaxaca Street Life and Re-Entry

Posted on Friday, October 25, 2024 | 7 comments

On Monday, despite bumping around a bit in the sky atop the last remnants of a tropical storm that painted a picturesque landscape of layered clouds as we came in for a landing, I arrived in Oaxaca. Re-entry was easy. I’m always grateful to pick up my luggage from the conveyor belt after passing through immigration, and then hit the button for customs. Hit a green button and you are waived through. Hit a red button and you are pulled aside to have your luggage inspected. It’s the luck of the draw.

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We walked to dinner at Sur a Norte, an always reliable favorite cafe bar that serves up very good food at a fair price. You can almost reach out and touch Santo Domingo church, located just across the cobblestone road. We recommend the tacos (any flavor will do).

Over the next two days in the city, I walked ten to twelve thousand steps each day. I covered a lot of territory. What I noticed was the proliferation of mezcal bars and tasting rooms. There is, it seems, one on every street corner, plus another one or two mid-block. No one has to leave Oaxaca thirsty. After all, we are billed as the mezcal capital of the world. Most don’t open until late afternoon, but that won’t stop a serious drinker from finding an open watering hole.

My first destination on Tuesday morning, after breakfast with Carol, Elsa and Eric at Yegole in Jalatlaco (more about this later), I headed to my favorite haberdashery, Alberle Hats on Calle Armenta y Lopez, southeast of the Zocalo. This time, instead of my usual beaver felted hat (half the cost of any in the USA), I wanted a handwoven straw hat from Michoacan. It’s still warm and sunny here, despite the fact that Taos, New Mexico, weather is cooling down to what my body calls almost frigid. Nightime lows there are thirty-six degrees. Brrrr.

The breakfast at Yegole was so delicious and satisfying — a gluten-free house-made toasted bagel slathered in bacon, cheese, grilled onions, and avocado — that I wanted another opportunity the following morning to indulge in chilaquiles with green salsa with an over-easy egg and well-cooked bacon on the side. Oh, I forgot to mention that on both days I ordered a banana-chocolate smoothie that was like eating dessert. Why not?

We managed to snag a lunch table later in the afternoon at Los Danzantes, by far my favorite Oaxaca restaurant. It is almost impossible to get in now, and I don’t think I’ve dined there in over two years. Don’t miss the coconut coated giant shrimp. I had two vegetable dishes, one a roasted cauliflower and the other roasted carrots floating on a beet puree. The best dessert is the goat cheese flan and we indulged.

While I’m not shopping for much, I did a loop through Miniso. This is a Chinese-Japanese owned variety store that features an excellent assortment of household items, cosmetics, toys, tech gizmos, stationery, and doo-dads. There is always something there that I need and want!

Then, it was off to Xiguela organic food store in Jalatlaco to stock up on lettuce (pre-washed and sanitized), zucchini, tomatoes, Manchego cheese, and avocados. Here in Oaxaca, the avocados are about ten cents each. We eat a lot of them. They were out of miso soup, so I’m going to need to go scouting.

It’s a week before Dia de los Muertos. The city is beginning to decorate and the state-sponsored tianguis — the outdoor shopping mall housed under tents near Santo Domingo Church — are being erected. The decor continues to be over the top exciting and each year there is a surprise that hangs over the main walking street, Andador Macedonio Alcala.

We can fit one more person into our October 30, Day of the Dead Tour, and we can take two more in our Teotitlan photography workshop from October 27 to 29 with Luvia Lazo. If you are in Oaxaca now, consider joining us.

Don’t forget to order:

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