The small towns around Lake Cajititlán are famed for their skilled artisans and you may have seen leaflets and brochures depicting, among other things, the beautiful basalt sculptures, colorful ceramics and rodeo-quality lariats produced in this area, which is only a 40-kilometer drive from Lake Chapala.
Recently, we decided to visit one of these towns, San Miguel Cuyutlán, hoping we might be able to watch its famed rope makers practicing their craft in their own backyards, so to speak. The main entrance to San Miguel is right on the Chapala-Tala highway,about a 30-minute drive from Ajijic.
First, we drove a few blocks to the church and, 80 meters west of it, came to the town plaza, which we expected to be surrounded by shops selling the lariats for which San Miguel is famous throughout Mexico and even in the USA, but, we discovered to our surprise that there was not a single rope shop in town, much less any sort of establishment catering to tourists.
Undaunted, I asked, “But you do make ropes here, don’t you?”
“Sí que sí, everyone replied, “lots of people here make ropes.”
So we began to look for ropemakers and eventually ended up in the casa of 72-year old master rope maker Don Isidro Díaz, a kindly, soft-spoken old gent who now uses a cane to get around. “How long have you been making riatas, I asked him?
“Riatas?” I don’t make riatas,” he replied. “I make sogas.”
I had used the wrong word. Riata is the origin of the English word lariat, an interesting corruption of “la riata,” but Don Isidro quickly pointed out that his ropes were much stronger than a mere riata and were referred to by rope makers as sogas.
Well, it turned out that Don Isidro learned his trade at the tender age of 15 and after making ropes for over half a century, has gained the fame of a master craftsman. “You won’t believe it,” he told me, “but people call me now from places like Chicago and Nevada and they come all the way here to buy their sogas.”
I asked Don Isidro if I could get a picture of him standing next to a heap of what I assumed were coils of rope in a corner of his living room. “Those aren’t ropes, they’re just strands—see how thin they are? They need five more months of work before they’ll be incorporated into sogas. They have to be just perfect because charros (cowboys) won’t buy them unless I give them my guarantee.”
I asked for how many months he guaranteed them.
“Months? My guarantee is for the life of the rope!”
Of course, I wanted to see the place where the ropes are made, but Don Isidro warned me, “Foreigners have come here expecting to see a factory full of machines. I hope you won’t be disappointed, because we have no machines—we do everything by hand.”
I was not at all disappointed. The soga-making works are located only a few blocks from Don Isidro’s house. Nothing like a factory, it’s an open-air operation: a flat place where strands of rope up to 100 meters long are stretched between stakes, only a few inches above the ground. The strands are made of twisted ixtle (sisal) fiber which comes from a wild maguey, a relative of the one used for making tequila.
It was a Saturday afternoon and no one was working in the “non-factory.” We were about to leave when one of the rope makers appeared. His name was Fernando Romero and he told us that different procedures in soga-making are carried out at different times of the work day, which begins at 5 a.m. This afternoon, he would be “twisting.”
How in the world he was going to twist those already tightly stretched cords, I couldn’t imagine, but Romero plucked one of them and said, “See, this one is a little slack.” With brute strength, he then slipped the looped end of the rope off the stake and, maintaining tension, walked over to an axle with a handle mounted on a sturdy pole. He slipped the loop over a pin at the end of the axle and turned the handle vigorously for about a minute. Again, straining mightily, he transferred the loop back to the stake. This procedure of tightening the strands goes on for many months, Romero told us. Next came a curious procedure. Romero grabbed a thick wad of loose sisal fibers and wrapped it around one of the stretched cords, which he then lifted up to shoulder level. He now began to walk forward—against great resistance—sliding the rope through the loofa-like wad of fibers, another operation requiring strength and endurance. “I do this 30 times in each direction, for each cord…every day,” he shouted over his shoulder as he disappeared off into the distance.
By then I was convinced that the pre-nylon manner of making rope was a difficult and meticulous business indeed and only by rising before dawn and watching all day long would I ever be able to understand and appreciate it.
Hopefully some readers of this column may beat me to it and I would appreciate photos and descriptions of other procedures you might happen to witness.
If you’d like to take a look at a completed soga de charro (only natural fiber ropes are allowed in official competitions of charrería), it’s easy to do because Don Isidro Díaz’s home is also a toy shop and a beauty parlor as well, open to the public. Should you want to buy a soga, I learned that the price of a 14-meter-long piece (about 50 feet) is around 1,100 pesos. You’ll probably agree they are worth a whole lot more if you also spend some time at the soga-making works, only 400 meters up the street.
Just in case you are one of those people in Nevada searching for an authentic rodeo rope made the good old way, you can contact Don Isidro Díaz at (52)333-772-4364.
How to get there
If you’re coming from Chapala, take the airport road north to the Cajititlán Road and drive west toward Tlajomulco. As soon as you pass Lake Cajititlán, you’ll see a sign for San Juan Evangelista. Don’t turn, but continue straight ahead 200 meters and make a left onto Eje Jiménez, the main street of San Miguel Cuyutlán. Set your odometer and drive south 715 meters to Eje Confederación Street. The Rope-Toys-Beauty Shop is just 27 meters east of you. Continue south on Jiménez and, 960 meters from the highway you’ll reach an arroyo (which sometimes carries water). Here you can park and continue south on foot another 46 meters. Now turn left and walk 118 meters to the rope-making works (N20 24.657 W103 23.565). Driving time either from Ajijic or from the Guadalajara Periférico is only half an hour.