Makin' Pigs in Pomaire -- April 14th

      A sunny Saturday in mid-April, we all piled into the van at our designated meeting spot to drive about an hour and a half outside of Santiago to enjoy the artisan town of Pomaire. Follow the link for more information about the town. The trip was exciting even before we left Santiago as one of our group members had just recently returned from a Chilean wedding the night before. While that might seem innocuous, but in fact the party had danced its way until 6am with the help of many a pisco sour apparently. Needless to say her enthusiasm at 9:30am was unmatched up until the point she passed out in the back row of the van.
     So we departed and a quick nap later we arrived. Pomaire, as we saw it, was a dusty little town with overgrown trees and a surplus of pottery shops. The van bumped up a long driveway to a large and gaudy house. The hosts warmly welcomed us and quickly showed us to the outdoor oven where they were preparing fresh bread for us to eat with our unexpected breakfast. AWESOME. Food surprises are some of the best, especially on a sleep-deprived Saturday morning. Breakfast consisted of fresh baked bread, with fresh eggs from the property or fig jam and a steaming hot cup of coffee. The meal gave us a chance to look around the house, which they say had been built ten years earlier. It was filled with everything. I mean everything. There was an 80s KISS themed pinball machine (which quickly became the object of all my envy). There was a circe 1950s baby blue beauty salon hair dryer being used as a coat rack. A large collection od locks and keys hung from a wall. An old radio was mounted to another wall whose dial was the light switch. I can't even attempt to name everything, but it was very cool.

     Filled with hot and delicious food, we were given a brief talk about the history of the town. A notable tidbit that came from this talk was that the families in Pomaire refer to the other families by their respective specialties in pottery. Comical, especially when she admitted that most people don't even know the real names of their neighbors. So we tucked that in our cap and set off down the road to play with clay at a workshop. At some nameless, signless, storefront-less garage, we encountered a stout man who was touted as being member of one of the original families of this artisan town (and thus, by extension, famous and very good at making clay crafts). After we gaped at the sheer volume of clay pots and candle holders and vases and umbrella holders, we turned our attention to a demonstration, lead by the man of the hour. We were going to be making piggy banks! Thankfully the body of the pig had already been made into a perfect round shape and we only had to tack on the features that make a football look like a pig. Ten piggy banks later and we were sitting behind a spinning wheel shaping the soft wet clay into bowls (or something that should have resembled a bowl).

The workshop

Piggy bank couple

My pig 

Makin' a bowl

     After everyone had a turn at making a bowl, we headed back to the house to be stuffed with food once more. Plates and plates of food were set in front of us. It was nauseatingly good. So, logically, after I decided to dip my toes in the pool on the grounds of this house (everyone else scoffed at such an activity... their loss). Well because that didn't last long, we headed back into town to try our hand at buying the clay artifacts.  Given that we were buying directly from the craftsmen, prices were rock bottom.  I figured that, if you didn't mind having all earthen-colored kitchenware, you could probably completely supply a kitchen of everything from bowls and cups to utensils and baking dishes for around $50. Pretty impressive. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to test that theory. Maybe next time. I came away from cheap pottery with only a few items: a coffee mug, a pitcher and three cups, setting me back a total of $7.