Mexico - Calandria Agates

My first attempts to find agates in Mexico by myself were probably as successful as if a boy from Mexico come for example to our Doubravice, to a quarry with a book by Josef Marks and would like to find in a day the amazing Doubravice sardonyxes we have here:-), this is of course impossible and even more difficult at localities in Mexico, especially due to the distances, weather and landscape.

I have been ten times in Mexico on business, but every time I try to combine at least part of the journey with agates collection. After the Monterrey, Saltillo, Leon and Guanajuato areas - where I have managed to find several sites for amethysts, agates and opals, I focus in recent visits on the area - Chihuahua, where passes the main Mexican mountain range Sierra Madre Occidental

In Chihuahua is about 53 agates localities, where there are collection stones. From these 53 sites, about 20 sites are among the best. The most famous of them are Laguna Ojo, Crazy Lace, Aqua Nueva, Coyamito etc. The stones that can be found here sometimes more or less overlap in type and color. The site I focus on is one of these 20 top localities in Mexico, it is Calandria.

This site is located in Chihuahua, in the area of Chihuahua city, near a smaller town Matachí. The local landscape is hilly and the terrain very difficult. The temperature here is mostly above 30 ° C, but during my visit in February 2021 was in Matachí snow and -6 ° C. A cold weather does not last long here, but lately it become more frequent in the winter months.

Trying to collect stones on your own in this country is totally different than buying Mexican agates on the internet, international stock markets etc., because minerals must not be exported from Mexico, strictly. In larger quantities, this is practically impossible. As a gift from a market, you may get them to the Czech Republic in your suitcase, but you still risk that the customs officers may throw them away at the three flight transfers. The main danger in Mexico is not just the heat, rattlesnakes and scorpions, unfortunately. The whole area in Chihuahua city and around the main road No. 45 towards the big border crossing to the USA, Juaréz (MX) - El Paso (USA) is one of the most dangerous parts of Mexico, thanks to the main drug route of narcos cartels, which recently joined migration crisis. The longer I travel to Mexico, the more respect I have for this area.

The name Calandria comes from an old Mexican story about a singer named Anatia, who sang as beautifully as the Mexican bird Calandria. When she died, they found beautiful agates while digging her grave, and from there they named them Calandria.

Calandria agates belong to a group of three agates localities that are similar, these are Calandria, Casas Grandas and Parcelas agates. Calandria are more colorful and more interesting than Casas and Parcelas, they have a lot of nice variations, but most of the stones about 95 % are quartz in a common crystalline form, then absolutely pure chalcedony or chalcedony with a very pale almost invisible agate pattern. Only about 5 % of the found stones are quality collection stones. Unfortunately, Calandria often have a big amount of cracks, especially in larger sizes there are very few clean stones. The stones here are mostly yellow, white, blue, pink, black and white and rarely even purple. Calandria agates have several totally unique types; perfect deep parallax effects (absolutely amazing patterns in pure chalcedony), Purple Passion (one of the most purple agate in the world and that in the combination with pink and blue-white, often with crystals of quartz, amethyst and smoky quartz) and Fuzzy agates (flakes, snow - thousands of circles and balls in chalcedony are as if drawn by a snow brush which creates amazing details) for me the most interesting effect.