The town square

My brother drove past the city limits sign, and soon turned off of Michoacán state highway 37, rolled through the main street, and parked in front of the town square. I rode shotgun, and crawled out of the air conditioned car to breathe in the warm mountain air. I had finally arrived at the Centro de Paracho and the town that builds guitars. Thousands of them. It really was a pinch-me-I'm-dreaming moment, because the hollow body guitar is the instrument I learned to play and love. Approximately 10% of the town's population (15,000) make them. I was a kid in a candy store city. I had no intention of buying a guitar. The constructors des guitarras in Paracho build and sell classical guitars almost exclusively, but I never got into playing that style of guitar. I was quite happy with my western style guitar, a beautiful bearclaw pine Jean Larrivée L-05. I simply wanted to see, touch and smell guitars.

Locals were bustling about the town square and on the sidewalks and streets. Closing the car door I took a 360 degree glance around me and noticed the lack of tourists and foreigners. I could have been wearing a big sign that read "We're here for the guitars", but I was wearing my Tool t-shirt that day.

The main street

It was now just a matter of deciding which direction to start walking. When we drove through the first half of the main street (Avenida 20 de Noviembre) to reach the center of town, I could see that most of it was shops, and that 90% of the shops were guitar shops. So as to not miss anything, we elected to walk back down the street in the same direction we came, turn around and walk to the other end of the street, checking each shop as we went.