The Rest of Mexico: Guanajuato, Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta

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I think perhaps I watch too much television that encourages stereotypes. Prior to arriving in the country I had been dubious about bus travel within Mexico, and thought that it may have involved sitting in the back of hay trucks with the chickens. In fact, I could not have been more wrong. Getting on the bus in Mexico City, we found that we each had a seat the size of an arm chair that had full foot rests and reclined horizontally. We were given a snack of a sandwich and a soda, and there were two toilets and a kitchen with coffee and tea making facilities in the back of the bus. There were also TVs throughout the bus that played movies during the journey. If only buses were like this back home. We settled down and enjoyed the pleasant four hours it took to get to Guanajuato.

At the bus station in Guanajuato we were unsure if it was safe to get in a taxi on the street. This had been a big danger in Mexico City, and it is not worth your life to flag down a random taxi there. It turned out Guanajuato was much quieter and safer, and our taxi driver Jorge was very friendly. He said he was impressed with my Spanish and that he would like to go to Scotland after I had explained that there was lots of whisky there.

Our hostel in Guanajuato was small and quiet, and we even got a room to ourselves. We went for a walk round the town and found a terrace bar to have a couple of beers in. A walk further into town and we discovered a buzzing plaza skirted by bars and restaurants. We had some dinner and had the first of our cocktails while listening to mariachi bands playing in the square. The margaritas and tequila shots started to flow, and the night led us to a karaoke bar, then to an awful dance club and finally to salsa club, where the men actually knew how to dance salsa. We danced until dawn and found out the next day just how evil tequila is.

After a day of recovery, we found ourselves on the bus again to our next destination. The downside of drinking tequila was evident, but as the hangovers faded, Franny found that her tonsillitis had also disappeared as well. Marvelling at our own genius, we arrived in Guadalajara, which is Mexico’s second biggest city, and we were to discover it was very different to Guanajuato. Our hostel was a part time art gallery and was a little bit worse for wear. We had another room to ourselves, but we hoped that we were in a good neighborhood as there was no glass in the windows and the shutters were jammed open. The door also did not lock and there were peculiar stains on the sheets. Sometimes being a backpacker just is not the glamorous lifestyle one would expect. It was too late to go into town that night so we ate at the restaurant attached to the hostel. We were the only ones eating there, and we soon found out why. The staff were rude, the service was appalling and the food was worse. Well, at least we knew we should find somewhere else to eat the following night.

Thankfully we picked up our clothes from the laundry the next day or we would have been wearing bikinis and boardies around town. If there was one thing we had learned so far in Mexico was that if you are a female tourist it is better to cover up, as it is really not worth the attention you would receive. We had planned to walk into town, but having been told it was too far to go by foot, we took a taxi. With a little help from our guidebook and a lot of help from the English speaking lady from the tourist information office, we took in the sights of Guadalajara. We walked round the Cathedral, saw the Orozco murals in the Government Palace, walked through pretty plazas with revolutionary statues and fountains and then had some lunch. The city felt a lot safer than Mexico City, but as beautiful as it was, we felt you would be at a loss to find things to do on your second day there. After lunch, Franny practiced her haggling technique in the largest gold and silver market we had ever seen, and then we took a stroll through the Mercado Libertad - an indoor market spanning three square blocks where you could buy most of anything you could imagine. Beside the market we found the Cabañas Cultural Institute that had the most amazing Orozco murals covering every wall and ceiling inside the chapel. At sunset we wandered back to the Cathedral and the Plaza de Armas where a live band was playing in the art nouveau wrought iron bandstand.

The next day was another town, and this time we took the bus to the Pacific coast and the tourist town of Puerto Vallarta. When we had been making our plans of where to visit in Mexico, at first we thought we would see Guanajuato and Guadalajara in the north and then travel south to visit Oaxaca and Acapulco. Unfortunately, we were just not meant to go loco in Acapulco, as we found it would have been too expensive and the bus travel too complicated to go that far south. As much as we liked Mexican buses, neither of us relished the thought of 18+ hours on one of them, as well as the fact that we were actually trying to save money in Mexico. So the plan changed, and we decided to stay up north and relax at the beach for the rest of the trip.

After the chill of Mexico City, it had been getting progressively warmer in each town we visited, and we were very happy as the humidity and heat hit us as we got off the bus in Vallarta - even if our hair was not so happy. Our taxi driver got quite lost on the way to the hostel, and no one he asked seemed to know where it was either. Finally he found it up in the hills, and after dropping our bags in our room, we enjoyed a cold beer on the roof terrace and met the other travelers staying there.

At the hostel, we met with a Spanish speaking girl called Astrid, who helped us to find our way around and introduced us to the Vallarta bus system on our first day. We went on the bus to the beach for only five pesos (about 20p), and languished in the sun for the day. That night, we went out in town with Astrid and a Swedish girl called Eva. Astrid turned into what can only be described as a psycho, and we were not that upset when she left town the following day. Franny and I were kind of expecting to wake up with only one eyebrow between us, and Franny felt the need to sleep with her guitar in bed with her in case Astrid stole it. Eva, however, was lovely, and we went out again with her on our last night in Mexico, and she also took the bus back to Mexico City with us.

Even if it was tourist heaven, we enjoyed our time in Vallarta. It was a relaxing holiday away from sightseeing for a few days. We went on a boat trip that took us snorkeling and horse riding up to some waterfalls and to the beach. We were waited on hand and foot, as the waiters constantly brought us cocktails from the free bar on board. Some people started drinking at 10am, but we managed to wait until after noon. The inclusive mai-tais set us up for our last night out in Vallarta, where I discovered that drinking tequila and coke, while tasty at the time, is not conducive to acting like a normal human being the following day. Perhaps I should lay off the tequila when we leave Mexico.

We were quite happy to leave Vallarta and get back to reality by the end of our stay. We took a twelve-hour over-night bus back to Mexico City. The bus was running late and as we arrived in the station, we had to hurriedly say goodbye to Eva and get a taxi to the airport where we would fly to LA. Mexico was an amazing place to visit and we were so pleased that we had decided to add it to our itinerary. Mexico City was not one of Franny’s favorite places, but we both enjoyed the other towns we visited. Driving through the countryside, one could see just how beautiful Mexico is, with its wide, sweeping plains and vast mountain ranges. The towns are incredibly colorful and packed full of history and culture. There is so much still to see in Mexico, I cannot wait to go back. One thing is certain though, and that is I need to learn Spanish, because “Donde esta the chocolate?” just will not cut it…

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