Visiting Concordia and one of its Furniture Factories

Monday a.m.

Today is our 76th day since we left home.
Back to our day trip Friday. After leaving Malpica we went to Concordia (see arch previous post) We’ve been here just about every year so I was surprised I never noticed this before. It is a statue of Francisco Ibarra – he founded Concordia in 1565 – Seems like every little town we’ve been in lately he had something to do with establishing. It also started out as a mining town.

He was a busy man

Before going into the main part of town we stopped at a “furniture and pottery factory.” It’s basically a big open sided building with a wood slat roof and cement floor. Several workers busy making  handcrafted colonial style furniture.

There were a few electric saws and lathes.

These unfinished children’s rockers and small tables were out front.

Notice carving and turned posts

This unfinished chest of drawers has hand carved designs on the drawers.

One of the workers carving the design into a leg of a night stand.

Working on leg of night stand

Some of the tools he uses.

See the eagle and big flower behind the tools

More of him working.

A clamp holds the place in place while he works on it

The Tourist Van showed up here too

What the nightstand will look like when he is finished carving it.

Still needs top and varnish

Very unsophisticated working environment but beautiful pieces are made here.

Some chair parts waiting to be put together

Chest of drawers, bed frame and chair parts

The headboard for a bed. Carved eagle – stained and varnished waiting to be picked up.

Just a piece of raw wood. Several of these were sitting around waiting to be used.

A couple more chairs they built. These are pretty nice and comfortable rockers. Leather seat.

One with leather seat about US$90 maybe less if bargained down

This I thought was pretty – will even be prettier when varnished. Each piece of wood was cut and placed by hand. Three or four different types of wood used.

Frame for mirror or picture

In another section of the building – a part with walls and a roof this guy was working on pottery. He was adding a decorative trim to the top of the pot. A braid ridge.


Using raw clay and a bucket of water.



Can see the ridge in the one he is working on.

Leaving there we headed into town towards the church and plaza.


One way street here

As we pulled up to park (wish I’d had the camera ready) a young lady was standing in front of this pole with her cell phone in hand and a wire leading from the phone to the pole. Bill asked her what she was doing – she was charging her phone. Notice the electrical socket below the gray box. What ever works.

Charge cell phones here!

The old church. Very ornate front. [pictures of it in previous blogs and web pages.] Construction began in 1740

A picture of the church taken from the plaza. A vendor has embroidered dresses and blankets for sale. And since last year a lot of changes have been made to the plaza. For one large hand made rocking chair has been added.

Giant rocking chair

And Gazebo has been painted with murals depicting the history of the area.

The stairs to the floor of the gazebo wind around half of the structure. Kind of different.

Circular stairs

This is the Government Palace – city hall – it has been newly repainted.

But it is another mother-in-law job. Notice the side is still unpainted brick.

And inside what did I find? Well a mural of course

Actually there were three of them – but couldn’t get a decent picture of the last one.

Surprisingly enough there is a women on all three murals – reading a scroll on the wall we discovered she was quite a woman. In 1865 the French invaded Concordia and set the town on fire. They captured and tortured Dona Valdez and she told the French basically to go to the blazes. Her people did not want them there. And that the French were assassins and bandits.

And here is Willie patiently waiting for us to continue on up the road to Copala.