Travel suggestions close to Zihua

What we found with our tour guide was that the studios were not on the main streets of the town but on small side streets. When we were touring the villages while in Patzquaro, Kathie got a beautiful hand carved Madonna in 1 village and a vase with the history of the region in another village. Unless you knew, you would not know about the famous artisans in the villages. A couple had American students studying under them and was living with them. We just love the Patzquaro/Morelia area to tour but "Z"&"I" is where we want to spend most of the time. There is a direct flight from Midway(Chicago) to Morelia. We flew United from Houston to Morelia because it was 1/2 the air miles to Morelia and flew home from "Z"- we took the express bus to "Z".