I Once Met a Man from Guadalajara

---

They´re Kirsty McCall´s words not mine. Actually, I´ve not met a ; ) man but really, I´m not complaining. There´s been way too much other stuff to keep me occupied without adding a man to the mix. I keep saying that we are packing in so much into this holiday and Charlie has suggested that at times we do not pack it in as much as extend the packing...

Just for something different our first day in Guadalajara was quiet - thank goodness! Still, we didn´t get to have as much of a sleep in as we thought given that our hotel was not in the quiet location we had initially thought it was in - the buses/taxis/people started moving and yelling starting at 6:30 with just a little bit of respite I think between the 4:30 and 6:30. I love my earplugs.

We did spend a fair bit of time wandering around aimlessly though which is a nice way to see the city. We visited the cathedral, the Palacio de Gobierno before deciding that it was high time to sit down. We found a nice outdoor restaurant that gave us our first introduction into Mexican dancing and singing. All very civilized whilst drinking coffee followed by a michelada and margarita.

When we decided to move on the skies opened up and Guadalajara showed us one of the many downpours we were to experience over the next couple of days. Look at this, several paragraphs in and I´ve not mentioned the weather! Now that I have though Guadalajara was a nice, if somewhat smoggy, alternative to the coast. Even though she sits below the Tropic of Cancer she is about 1200m above sea level. In the days to come, granted it did get cooler, we were to see people running around with long sleeved jackets and scarves. We were still running around in short sleeves and definitely no scarves.

For dinner we ate at a restaurant opposite the Plaza de Armas. I´m not that adventurous with my food but Charlie is proving to be quite partial to trying out different things. The waiter said that the dish she had ordered was very hot. No problems Charlie replied. Indeed, the dish looked like a volcanic mortar and was bubbling and boiling along for the duration of the meal ie for as long as it lasted which was quite some time and during which Charlie built up quite a sweat. It wasn´t quite the type of hot we expected. And whilst all of this was happening the local mariachi (made up of two guitarists and an accordian player) belted out tunes behind us. It was soooo embarrassing (our behaviour not theirs) as we were trying to decide how much we should be paying seeings that they were playing right behind us. In the end, one of the singers put us out of our misery and told us it was free and then they went to play a song for us. I hate awkward moments like that. But the singing was great!

Oh, I forgot to mention a really important point. Prior to eating (yet again) we sat in the square for a while people watching and started speaking to a woman who was there with her three children (Charlie being pooped on by a pidgeon started the conversation - you gotta love a pidgeon poop for breaking the ice). She was a kindergarten teacher and spoke English really well. We did try to speak Spanish but honestly, ít´s very painful for both the listener and the speaker especially if it extends for anything more than one sentence. She asked us how long we were going to be in Guadalajara for and whether we were going to visit Chapala. Chepala wasn´t on our itinerery but when she said that it was very beautiful and sitting on the largest lake in Mexico it was starting to sound more attractive. She followed on by suggesting she could possibly take us there the following day. We thought it was about time we had some contact with a Mexican other than those we come across in restaurants, hotels and bus stations so we said yes.

Another early morning start to meet up with said woman and her three kids. I say early but really, it wasn´t that early. It was 10:30 but trying to organise showers/breakfasts/toilets/two women can be time-consuming.

We started off the day by driving to the market to buy a chicken. You like chicken? I didn´t think now was a good time to say no I don´t eat meat (jerky not included) and especially birds so instead just nodded my head fervently. Here we go again... Now, you can imagine chickens at little markets. There they were displayed in all their naked glory. It looked like they were sleeping. Not for long. The butcher asked if we wanted the chosen chicken filleted - yes - and then he proceed to chop off heads, feet, wings etc. I couldn´t watch but it was over very quickly and before you know it it just looked like pieces of meat that had been joined up to make a whole chicken. Worse was when a live chicken was picked out of a basket, kicking and screaming so to speak, and then taken to the back room where all became very quiet...

It was not all doom and gloom at the market though. They had the most wonderful array of fresh fruits with colours so vibrant that it makes our pastel versions back home appear like imitators of the real thing. Mind you, there was a lot there that I´d never seen before as well and our dictionary was not much help with translations. And the fruit itself was displayed the way the Mexicans like to eat their fruit - cut and sprinkled with chile.

We made our way to Chapala via a quick viewing of the woman´s house and to pick up her husband. So, there were all of us, crammed into a 4wd. Granted they are bigger than a sedan but to seat 4 adults and 3 children? Needless to say that it did but there wasn´t a lot of seatbelt usage involved... When in Mexico.

Chapala. Um, it was nice. Would I go back there? No. Did we have a nice time drinking tequila out of a large pottery bowl, eating whitebait with lime, spending a ridiculous amount of money on it and the ferry to and from the island? Yes.

So, having whiled away a most expensive couple of hours we turned around and drove back to Guadalajara to eat and drink again. Just between you and me (and the www) the chicken tasted very nice. And come 8:30(ish) it was time for us to head back to our hotel. A tiring day but a fun one and great to have spent it with a Mexican family.

As is beginning to be quite a routine for us, we went in search for a cafe so Charlie could have her fix of caffeine before going to bed. Supposedly this helps her sleep. I´m not convinced but it makes for interesting cafe hunting... I managed to redeem my Los Mochis hotel debacle by suggesting we try for Cafe Madrid. It was a dream. They made cappucino like back home (although not as strong) with a real machine using real coffee with real milk. No Nescafe and powdered crema for us! Yay! It was a cafe from a different era with old school waiters in white jackets and bow ties pulling out chairs for the ladies and lighting cigarettes. We loved it so much we made it our local and had breakfasts and just-before-bedtime coffees (me included) for the rest of the time we spent in Guadalajara.

The next day we visited Tonala. We decided to go on a Sunday because the guidebook said that it had an "animated" street market and had good shops for those people who had more than a passing interest in ceramics. Tick and tick. Well, it didn´t take too long for the ticks to become crosses. "Animated" became crowded and the good shops were closed. I was ready to leave on the first bus but it was sheer chaos trying to find the bus stop let alone a bus to get on and then the right bus at that! And the locals were having as much trouble as us. In the end we jumped on a bus that had the name of our next destination, Tlaquepaque (not the easiest word in the universe to say). Disappointingly, as we were leaving Tonala all the fabby shops kept appearing.

Tlaquepaque is a town famous for its mariachi bands and artisans. I wasn´t disappointed. It has all of that in droves and then some. Plus is had a fabulous regional ceramics museum. Mexican pottery is absolutely exquisite as are all their crafts really. Very animated and full of life. When we eventually sat down during siesta we sat at what the guidebook described as the "biggest bar". Really it was just a rather large courtyard but they had some great entertainment in the form of dancing and singing. They had a mariarchi band playing up in the bandstand and when that entertainment was over they´re was an influx of mariachi plying for custom around the courtyard. I personally find it quite difficult to listen to more than one person / band at a time but the Mexicans seem to take it all in their stride and don´t appear to mind paying $40 to a ten piece band for a couple of songs whilst all around there are other bands doing the same. To me it just sounded like competitive noise. I wish I had the Mexican talent of noise blockage. Still, it was a great day exploring the shops of Tlaquepaque and the bus trip home way more easy going. Yay!

We did try to find an internet cafe in downtown where we could book our onwards flight from. We planned to go to Tulum on the Yucatan Peninsula. Booking a flight ought to be easy but it does prove more difficult with a Spanish keyboard and Spanish error message. Needless to say we "booked" a flight but weren´t sure whether it actually went through... We spent the next morning trying to confirm this by going to an internet cafe and still not having any luck and then catching a taxi to Mexicana Airlines (where the taxi driver gave us a crash course in Spanish). Mexicana Airlines confirmed that our endeavours the previous night as well as that morning were futile by advising us that our bookings had not gone through. So it was back to finding an internet cafe again.

Patience levels were running at an all time low but thankfully we managed to get on a flight (not on the one we had initially booked for). Things like this will test a friendship. Am happy to say, Charlie and I are still friends and travelling together. We had half a day to go and thought we would best spend it by going to Tequila to, well, drink Tequila. More on that in the next (shorter) blog...

---