I have just heard about the Feria del Sombrero (hat festival) that takes place yearly up in the hills of the State of Guerrero, in the town of Tlapehuala, located between Ciudad Altamirano and the town of Arcelia in the area known as Tierra Caliente, close by the Rio Balsas.
Although other crafts are made in the area, including painted clay pots and water jugs, this town is particularly known for it’s palm-leaf craftsmanship and especially for its hats.
The Tlapehuala Feria del Sombrero has been going on since 1988 and is an attraction for both tourism and commerce to the area. Included in the prep for that first festival were the construction of simple, temporary stalls where the various hat-makers and other merchants could exhibit and sell local wares and regional food specialties, and the organization of a parade with floats, eliciting the participation of school kids from the neighboring towns, the gathering of Calentano musicians and other bands from around the state to play for the townsfolk, and the festooning the streets of Tlapehuala with strings of hats as decoration. Since then, it has been a growing, annual event.
This year, for its 20th anniversary, the Feria del Sombrero takes place throughout the week of November 15th through the 23rd, 2008.
The area of Tlapehuala and Cd. Altamirano in general is unfortunately not an easy place to get to from our area of the coast, being accessible only via the not-at-all recommendable Zihuatanejo-Altamirano highway where you have to watch out for robberies and horrendous road conditions, especially right now after the rainy season, or from the Iguala side over about 165 kms of sinuous, secondary mountain highway that on the map surely looks a lot closer than the drive really is.
