We said goodbye to Patzcuaro this morning and made our way to Santa Clara del Cobre, one of the Pueblos Magicos, about 30 minutes south of Patzcuaro.
We arrived in town and found a parking very near the Parish Church. We had a chance to look inside as we made our way to the town square. Shortly after our arrival, there was a funeral procession through town and the people filed into the church for a service.
Because we arrived in town so early many of the shops weren’t open yet, but the food stands were! I have no idea what she called them, but the filling was “tingas” and cheese, then then deep fried it and topped it with lettuce, crema and a green chili.
Tobey and I split one and they were tasty! 
The gazebo in the square has a copper roof, but it looks like it needed to be polished.
The big draws to Santa Clara del Cobre is copper. Copper has been worked in this area since pre-Hispanic times, with the native Purépecha being the most advanced smiths of that time. Although the Spanish introduced new techniques, one native technique that was kept was that of smelting, as it was more efficient than European techniques. 82% of the town’s population is employed in the making of copper items. There are 250 registered workshops in and around the town, which process about 450 tons of copper each year. We stopped in a few of the shops that were open on our way to the copper museum.
One little shop let us go back and watch as they were working some of the copper and preparing a pattern.
The museum was supposed to open at 10, but at 10:45 when they still hadn’t arrived to open, we decided to get on our way. I am sure it was a great museum and maybe someday we will see it!
We made our way out of Santa Clara del Cobre and back toward Patzcuaro to catch the Cuota 37D back to the coast. We again, retrace much of our trip coming to Patzcuaro – tolls and all! There aren’t many choices on the toll road for food, so we stopped at a place just past one of the toll booths. Tobey wanted to try tacos “birria de chivo” and they had them. “Birria de chivo” is goat meat. We each had 2 tacos and they brought us a chivo consommé which was good and some fried cheese. The meat itself didn’t have much flavor, so we don’t need to order them again!
It was fun to see the signs for “Nueva Italia” on our way back to the coast. We had fun Googling the story behind New Italy in Mexico. Seems a man moved to the area in 1909 from Italy and developed the area into one of the leading agricultural areas in Mexico. He was able to bring several people from Italy and they are know for growing the most corn in Mexico!
So we said goodbye to the mountains and arrived back at the coast. We checked out the area of Playa Azul thinking we would camp there, but there really wasn’t any place to stay. We stayed at Playa Chuquiapan six years ago and it was only 30 kilometers further down the road, so we figured it would be a good choice. Well, Tobey has a theory about remembering things. He calls it his “Eggs Benedict” theory. The first time you have it, it is incredible, so you order it every time you go to a new restaurant, but it is never as good as the first time.
We pulled along the beach area and it is much more developed than six years ago (go figure). We found an empty lot between two buildings that we were able to park at for the night. 
We camped in front of this restaurant below – on the beach – six years ago. I don’t know if we weren’t as cautious then, but the sand was VERY soft and neither of us was sure we could pull out there and then get back in this RV. We did have dinner there and they definitely gave us the “gringo” price! We had a fish dinner and a shrimp dinner and it was $400 pesos (about $23 USD). While that is a reasonable price, it is much higher than most places we have been.
We walked the beach and there is a small lagoon next to the restaurant where we saw these interesting ducks swimming.
The sunset was nice and we will settle in for the night. Tomorrow we move farther north. No cell service or internet, so we will post when we can.
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