Viva Tequila

---

Guadalajara (or "Guad" as some say) wasn´t spectacular, but tequila country was! We kicked off our pilgrimage to the town of Tequila with a crazy, action-packed busride through the Mexican countryside. We sat behind a little old man carrying a box of chirping chics (pollitos) who chatted with us in espanol and made us guess his age - he was almost 80, but didn´t have a single gray hair. The rest of the ride, vendors jumped on at one stop and off at another so every time you looked up, there was another character to greet us.

There was a father-son duet who played guitars and serenaded us with Spanish songs in the isle (Trev tried to shout "more tuuunes!" but they were gone before we could muster up "mas musicaaaa!¨). There was someone selling nuts, another offering tropical fruit cups, and then the best bus guest boarded... the ice cream man. It was a lot like the last leg of this year´s Boulder Bolder when after seeing breakdancers, cheerleaders and musicians with all types of instruments, someone announced ¨Finally! The xlophone!¨ It was the last thing we expected to see, but for some reason, just made sense.

After traveling the Bourbon Trail of distilleries in Kentucky, Trev and I were excited to expand our alcohol education at the Jose Cuervo distillery. We learned that the blue agave plant takes 10 years to ripen and that the core or piña weighs between 40 and 70 pounds (pictured). It´s then stripped, roasted and chopped so the sugars inside can be fermented and distilled. We enjoyed a margarita at the end of the tour, but after grilling our tourguide and never seeing a single marg on Mexican menus, we realized that (shock of shocks!) the famous marg is actually American. Casa Alvarez may have the best margs this side of the Mississippi, but Mexicans must toot and shoot their tequila instead.

We returned to Guad to enjoy delicious tacos and see a band play in the middle of a plaza. The next day, we decided that anything we might need, we would send home so we don´t have to carry it. (Girls, I´m now down to two pairs of shoes and three outfits.) Our trip to the post office was another adventure in itself - they found us an old box, demanded we cover it with paper and tape, and then forced us to buy (and lick) a million stamps to cover the cost. So Nick and Joc, the rest of our belongings MIGHT arrive in a month or two...

---