Our First Steps in Mexico

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Well we finally made it Guadalajara after a three hour Greyhound bus ride from LA to Tijuana, and a four hour flight from Tijuana to Guadalajara. Once we collected our bags, we sat in the airport trying to decipher the directions given to us by our hostel and eventually decided to try our luck with the local bus system. Unfortunately the airport bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere which, in absence of a decent map, began to cause us a fair bit of concern. In hindsight our concern was probably unwarranted, and was probably exaggerated by the Mexican crime books I have been reading beforehand; not a good choice before a trip to Mexico! Anyway, after a great deal of deliberation we decided to risk being taken hostage and flag down a cab. The cab driver was very pleasant and promptly delivered us to our hostel with a smile.

The first thing that we noticed about Guadalajara was the abundance of people who spoke little or no English. Luckily I attended a few Spanish lessons back in London and, in combination with a decent phrasebook, we managed to survive. The city itself is large, about 4 million people, and is renown to be one of the more authentic Mexican cities. After a day´s walking around he major attractions we found it to be rather unremarkable in comparison to your typical city in Europe. There were a few beautiful cathedrals and many monuments but nothing overly dramatic, although I'm sure if we spent more time there our opinions would change.

On our second day we took a bus out to the town of Tequila. There were a number of different distilleries that we could visit, but we opted for the one we knew best, Jose Cuervo. The tour provided us with a thorough explanation of the Tequila making process, as well as numerous tequila shots and two free margaritas! While we were waiting for the bus out of Tequila, some drunk hombre approached us and proceeded to slur a combination of bad English and Spanish slang. We think he wanted us to take a ride in his car (good luck!) so he could show us the town. After about half an hour of us saying 'no, gracias' he finally left us alone.

Tomorrow we have plans to travel to D.F. (Mexico City), which I hope will be a bit more lively than Guadalajara. Hopefully there will me lots of fellow travellers whom we can socialise with and find find out the best spots to visit. Until next time... Adios.

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Photos

A Standard Cathedral in GDL
We thought this was the main cathedral, but it turns out to be just a local shrine.

The Main Cathedral
The interior of this cathedral was rather plain in comparison to the one before.

The Heats of The Agave Plant
They call these Pinas, meaning pinapples because of how they look. These a roasted so all the sugars caramelise before being juiced to form the basis for the fermentation process.