Mexico - Guadalajara

---

Suzanne here...

So on to Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state. The bus journey there was fine, and we then caught a local bus from the bus station heading into town, or so we thought. After about 30 minutes I started to wonder. In fact, I started to wonder if we were even in Guadalajara. We´d presumed we were as everyone had got off the bus, but I´d not actually seen any signs confirming it... None of the road names matched up with our map. How bloody stupid were we going to feel if we were in completely the wrong town? Luckily the road names matched up at last and we reached the city centre. Turned out the bus station was 9km from the centre and well off our map.

We wasted time looking around for a hotel before doing back to the first place we´d looked at. On the second visit I wondered why I´d initially been so fussy. The Degollado Hostal was fine, clean and cheap. For M$300 (£15) we got a private room with shared bathroom and breakfast. Free internet and lots of communal seating areas too. It also turned out to be blissfully quiet at night. There was one really annoying American guest banging on about Jesus, but we avoided him.

Once we were settled in we went in search of food. We chose La Chata, partly as it was in the guidebook but mainly due to the huge queue of locals outside. It took us about 30 minutes to get a seat and we had a really good feeling about the food. It turned out to be a bit disappointing. Certainly it was ok, but just that. Quite ordinary and the huge queue was certainly not justified. We then traipsed around looking for a couple of metal bars we´d read about, but they were gone. Tried the cinema as we wanted to see the new Harry Potter, but it was only in Spanish, so it was back to the hostel for an early night.

The next day we´d planned to visit a gallery and a museum we´d read about, but both were shut. In fact, it seems like every museum and gallery in Guadalajara is shut on a Monday. Still, we wandered around the nice plazas and looked at the beautiful cathedral. We had an early and delicious dinner of Tortas Ahogadas (or drowned sandwiches), a pork baguette covered in a spicy tomato sauce, very tasty. We then headed to another, larger, cinema to see the last Harry Potter film, which we thoroughly enjoyed. We came out to torrential rain. Insanely, we then walked for about 30 minutes in said pouring rain to try and find another metal bar. Yes, you´ve guessed it, it wasn't there. Still not sure why as we had the correct address and their Facebook page had recently been updated. The things we do for metal. We were absolutely soaked by the time we got back to the hostel.

Originally we planned to leave on the third day but we decided to stay one more day. Partly to visit the museum and gallery that were shut, and partly for the Tuesday Lucha Libre - or Mexican wrestling. The first museum, the Instituto Cultural De Cabanas, was terrible. Most of it was shut and the murals we just not to my taste. The gallery, the Museo de las Artes, was ok but tiny. Luckily we did stumble upon another free gallery at the El Carmen Ex Convent though, which had some excellent exhibitions on.

For dinner we went to Birriería las Nueve Esquinas. They specialise in baked lamb and stewed goat. Ok, I confess I was leaning towards the lamb, but for some reason they didn't have any, so we both went for the goat. It was delicious actually, really tender. Then it was on the the main event, Lucha Libre. We got there about an hour early so after buying our tickets went in search of a drink. All the bars looked very male dominated and we were umming and ahhing when we heard the first few bars of Rammsten 'Du Hast'. That was it, we were straight in there. Actually, I have no idea who put it on as the bar was full of mainly old men. Still, the beer was cheap and nobody bothered us. We put a couple of metal tunes on ourselves and nobody complained. One old guy took great delight in videoing his friend (on his mobile phone) sleeping through System of a Down!

We made our way into the arena and I made sure to visit the toilet as I'd read you can get a lot of grief if you get up to go during the wrestling. A t-shirt for sale saying 'no el baño, no el baño y no el baño' (I'm not going to the toilet, I'm not going to the toilet and I'm not going to the toilet) supported this rumour. Before the the wrestling even started, people in our area shouted insults at the people in the cheaper seats, who in turn turned around to the wall and insult the people outside who could not even afford the cheaper tickers. It was all very good humoured and actually hilarious. Lots of insults were bandied about throughout the night, but I couldn't understand most of them. I did get 'veulta vuelta' (I think) which basically means something along the lines of 'turn around' - aimed at any girl who came in late of otherwise made herself obvious. It was very friendly though, and a quick spin brought a round of applause. I couldn't resist a beer or three, so of course did need to visit the toilet. However, if you skirt around the back when something is happening in the ring you can get away with it. I've not even mentioned the wrestling itself which was of course very over-blown and staged but very good fun. One guy came on to Rammstein which was great, and possibly explained the jukebox choice earlier. We all hissed at the baddies and cheered the goodies and laughed until we cried. What a night. Very Mexican and very memorable.

---