Guadalajara

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  Guadalajara, Mexico
Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Firstly...for those of you that don't know yet, for some reason, Vodafone in Ireland won't let us send messages from our mobiles here. We've both got another phone here, so we can recieve messages on our Irish numbers and reply from the Mexican ones! Messy I know, but it's the only way we can stay in touch! If anyone needs to send a text, just do so as normal to our Irish numbers. - Thanks! 

Anyway, on with the travels......
Having decided to leave Mexico City, we set up on heading North West to Guadalajara. It would have to be an 8 hour bus trip, but we weren't in any hurry! The bus trip sounded terrible in my head, but Eoin did a bit of research on t'internet and found a good company. The research definitely paid off cos the bus was great. Massive seats which folded out into a small bed, TV's, toilets, tea & coffee machine...all for the equivilant of 37 Euros.

The bus station

. result!!!!
We couldn't get a hostel so had to settle for a cheap hotel, named the Fenix. I had visions of Phoenix Nights, with a Mexican Brian Potter behind the counter, but it wasn't that bad. Although when we were checking in, there was a girl doing a bit of singing in reception and she was doing a terrible version of Wind Beneath My Wings....in Spanish!!

The hotel was in a great spot, close to loads of restaurants and bars etc. After the long bus trip though, we didn't arrive till near 10pm so it was a quick bite to eat in a place called La Gorda (which means The Fat Lady) a couple of beers, a quick look around and then bed! We weren't exactly giving Michael Palin a run for his money with out ventures just yet, but we didn't care!!

The next day we decided to go walk about and were very quickly pleasantly surprised by what we saw. It's a really nice place, with loads of colour and music all over. It is a very artistic area the buildings & architecture are fabulous. It looks a lot the Mexico you have images of from films etc. Guadalajara is also the home of the Mariachi's (those little groups of singers and musicians dressed in cowboy outfits). We've not seen any yet as apparently they only come out on Sunday nights

At the bus station...happiness at last!

. But the men do love the cowboy culture here. Everywhere you look there's someone with a white leather stetson hat and the tan leather boots. It's so popular that there's a massive industry in shoe cleaning in all the Plazas (some photos attached). There is also quite a lot of poverty here too, and street beggars are very common.

The main part of the town is broken up into a serious of Plazas, or squares, where all manner of people meet up. From young kids, to ageing old dears, young couples, and a lot of families also. There's a lot of little districts within the town too. For example, one district is for Jewellery, one for Pawn Shops, one for Foreign Exchange, one for Musical Instrucments etc.. It seems like the type of place that Mexicans come to on holiday. We were so relieved to have got out of the City and have found somewhere like this!

We returned to the town centre later that night, but it was fairly quiet, so just had a couple of beers and headed back to the hotel.
The only thing looming over our heads was the fact that we were in a hotel and not really meeting anyone new or talking to people. We only had 2 nights in the hotel so we said we go to a hostel the next day.

Side streets..

Trying to find a hostel appeared quite hard as all websites said they were booked out for that night. We decided to go to one of the hostels that was close by in person to see if there was any beds, and our luck was in!

The hostel itself is very nice. Massive building, very close to the city centre, and the people seemed really nice too. Once settled, we decided to meet some of our room mates, and we were lucky to get a mixed bag of nationalities and ages. There's Bill, an Aussie who's real laid back and..well...Aussie! Mark, from the US, who's also ex-army, and is quite regimental and to be honest...a little bit scary. He seems like the type of guy that carries a knife in his sock! And then there's Malcolm, a 74 year old Canadian who's travelled the world and seen pretty much everything. He's used to work on various ships over the years, so he's full of stories and a genuinely nice man. Who can knock a tequila back in about 1.5 seconds too!! He sounds a lot like Grandad from Only Fools and Horses, so he's fine in my book. And the last guy is a chap called Dougan from New Zealand, who at 21 has so far seen most of Asia, South America, and had flown into Mexico from a 5 stop tour or Europe.....so he certainly put us to shame!

Having aquainted ourselves with everyone, we decided to head for some tacos and beer

All the beer had really begun to show on Eoin

. Five tacos & a drink cost 31 Pesos (just under 2 euros) so it was really good value. Off we went looking for a bar, and found a very tipical Mexican Tavern, which had a massive collection of Bullfighting memorabilia on the walls, including some massive stuffed Bulls heads.
The beers flowed long into the night, and even the odd Tequila too, so I'm writing this with a bit of a light head! The beer came in buckets of 6 bottles filled with ice, so they were going down a little too easy! From what we can remember we got 5 buckets of beer and a 2 Tequilas, which by the way are double shots and really really strong! The buckets of beer only cost 130 pesos (8 Euros) so it ended up being a long night! We even had a picture of us drawn by a local street artist, while he was looking through the window of the pub, which you can see in the photos.
On the way back to the hostel we decided to get some more drink, so we got 10 cans in a 7-11 shop....really showing our Irish class there!! So there was a party back in our dorm, at one stage there, was 2 Aussies, a New Zealander, 2 Americans, a Canadian, and the two wee Paddy's, so it was interesting night's conversation!
Needless to say we all have sore heads today, but we feel a lot better about being in a hostel and meeting so many different people. After a bit of a bumpy start, it finally feels like we're going somewhere. And that going somewhere includes a trip to the town of Tequila tomorrow.....no prizes for guessing what's it the home of!! So I'll take a safe guess and say the sore heads will be back fairly soon!!
For now though, I'll say hasta pronto, or talk soon. Thanks for the comments on the previous blogs guys, they're all good to see, and giving us a good laugh.
James,

Ps: For family/friends of Eoin, he sends on his best regards, and he was genuinely thinking about setting up his own Blog, but then we ended up in the pub, and the thought drifted very quickly!
   
 
 
 

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

The main catherdral	Some of the buldings in Guadalajara	A courtyard in the Musuem of Fine Arts	The courtyard in the art galley
Another one of the courtyard	Some more examples of the builings	The ceiling of the Fine arts museum	Me & yet another fountain!
Before getting soaked!	A stone snake monument	The shoe shiners	Eoin on the Throne!
Another cathedral	The Bandstand at night!	The bullfighting memorabilia	Some more bullfighting posters
The Bucket!	Full bucket...	Empty bucket!	The lads..
Tequila!!!!!!	Malcolm prepares the salt and lime..	...and downs it in one!	All of us again
Eoin & Doogan in full conversation	The painting...	From the balcony of the Hostel at night	A very drunken photo..

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