Guadalajara, so this is Mexico

Flew into Guadalajara eventually, after a quick stop off along the way (can´t remember what that place was called right now, but when I do it will get it´s own entry in the blog!).  I slept for a lot of the flight, so didn´t get to see much from the plane on the way in.  The taxi ride from the airport was a bit of an eyeopener though.  After the taxi man had tied mine and Nikki´s bags to the roof, we set off on the 45 min journey to downtown.  You can forget putting your seatbelt on, taxis in Mexico don´t have them in the back seats.  It´s perfectly clear after setting foot in the country for a second that it doesn´t have an MOT system either.  But the driving seems safe enough, and we didn´t see a single accident.  I´d be more worried about a wheel falling off a car than someone hitting you.  The drive in was pretty grim to be honest, Guadalajara seemed a very poor place.  Buildings and vehicles alike were very rundown.  The city itself wasn´t much of an improvement, the streets and pavements were not in great condition.  We also noticed that none of the shops have doors.  They are just, well, concrete sheds, with roll shutters to pull down at the end of the day.  So you could see into workshops, garages and printers, and see people at work, because everything happened in that one little shed.  It was cool.  Some grocery shops didn´t have that format, they just had a little window with bars, and you asked for everything you wanted, and it got handed out through the bars.  It seemed a bit excessive, security-wise.

But I´m getting ahead of myself.  The taxi man finally found our hostel, and it was lovely.  Hostal Maria opens out onto a public square at the front, which was mostly occupied by kissing couples.  Out the back was a really pretty little terrace, attached to the kitchen, with a waterfall.  That´s the other thing about Mexico - man they love their fountains.  They are everywhere, anytime there was a spare square foot, a fountain was instantly constructed.  Don´t get me wrong, they´re lovely, and improve the look of the city a lot, it´s just that there are loads of them.  Everywhere.

We settled into the hostel, and met David, a Mexican guy who was living there.  He told us about some kind of Mexican fight that happened on Tuesdays and Sundays, where they wear these funny masks and wrestle.  It was Tuesday, and the boys were very keen to go to that, so off we headed.  We tried to find somewhere along the way to get food, but all we could see were street vendors outside the fight hall.  I´m sure what the had to offer was delicious, but it was our first night outside of the comfy western world, and we weren´t sure our stomachs would be up to it.  On top of that, we were quickly discovering how useless our three or four words of Spanish were, so couldn´t even ask anyone.  So we decided to keep looking, and to get food before going in.  We eventually came across a restaurant, where we were served some lovely Mexican dishes.  On the down side, by the time we got back to the fight, it was full and they had stopped letting people in.  Sorry boys.

We headed back to the hostel, where Nikki decided she was going to bed, and the rest of us decided to check out our local, La Vaca.  For those of you not fluent in Spanish, that means ´the cow´, although with one look inside the bar, you could have figured that out for yourself.  The walls are decorated with cows in various poses, and a massive plastic moo hangs from the ceiling.  It´s kinda cool.

The three of us sat in the corner chatting, and noticed that a group of guys kept looking over at us.  Eventually one of them came over to us, and spoke in Spanish to Rick.  When he realised we didn´t speak Spanish, he spoke in international sign language, making the internationally recognised sign for "Would you like to play pool with us?"  I don´t know what kind of way Rick smokes, but he initially thought they were asking for a cigarette.  I´ll think twice before ever handing that boy a box of matches.

We played pool with our new friends, and became increasingly frusrated by the fact that we couldn´t converse with them.  However we somehow managed to have a laugh, them at us being absolutely disgusted by their picked pig fat bar snack, and us at them drinking their wierd beer, tomato juice and chili concoction.  It was pretty grim, and they drank it by the bucketfull.  Another guy joined us, and he spoke English, hurray, someone we could talk to!  He invited us to his Independance day party, that was in his friend´s bar that weekend.  We were having a right laugh in there, and Rick decided that, since we were in Mexico, it was tequila time.  Nancy, the barmaid (who RIck had his eye on), was summoned to ply us with shots.  It turns out that La Vaca only had a license for beer, not shots.  But Rick wanted tequila aqui!  So Nancy bobbed out to the shop and bought us some tequila, what a nice barmaid!  Mike decided it was time to go home at that stage, and RIck and I headed on to Mesh´s friend´s  bar with our new Mexican amigos.

The next day we got up, sorted ourselves out, and decided to get some lunch.  A lady in the hostel recommended a Chinese nearby, so we went to check that out.  When we got there, there was a buffet that looked like it had been sitting there for a while, so we opted for the menu.  It was a real struggle trying to order even a Coke from the Chinese lady who served us, so we didn´t bother asking about items on the menu.  Perhaps if we had understood Spanish she would have advised against it, but we went ahead and ordered four plates of food.  We tried asking if we needed to order rice with the dishes, but gave up and didn´t bother.  Some time later, a massive plate of chow mein arrived.  It looked like what Nikki had ordered, but surely that much food wasn´t meant for one person?  Another plate arrived, and it turned out it was.  By the time all the food was on the table, we were full from picking at the first one!  So it was all boxed up, and taken with us for dinner.  I´m sure the woman wondered why we didn´t just order a take out.

After filling the hostel fridge with Chinese food, we headed downtown for a bit of a wander.  The town was nice, with gorgeous Cathedrals and churches.  Mexicans certainly know how to make pretty buildings, and fountains.  Needless to say there were lots more of them around the town.  We spent the day just walking round, taking in the sights.  We also checked out the other hostel, which seemed to a bit more of a ´party´hostel, but wasn´t as nice as ours.  That was about it for that day.

Before we headed out the next day, I asked the lady in the hostel about things to do and see.  She took out a coffee table-stylee book of buildings and paintings, so we picked out a few and headed for them.  There really were so mainly fantastic buildings, it was hard to imagine them all scattered round the city, which otherwise appeared so rundown.  We went back to the main Cathedral to have a look at the rotunda, which was lovely.  On the way through the town we came across a Ripley´s Believe it or Not museum.  I had seen the one in San Fran before, but hadn´t gone in because I´d heard it was crap, and not worth the $20 or whatever.  But this one was only about 2 pounds, so we decided to give it a try.  It was actually kinda cool, and had some pretty nifty stuff in it.  Like the apparently free standing tap that had water pouring out of it, even though it wasn´t attatched to anything.  At one stage there was a video with people doing wierd things with their tongues and faces.  There was a mirror on the wall, and signs (in Spanish) encouraging you to try to imitate the people in the video.  I´m pretty glad I didn´t understand them, we found out further on that the mirror is a window on the other side, where people can watch you make a total eejit out of yourself.  We got a pretty good laugh out of that one.  But not as much as the last bit.  There were some mummies in various positions, and some info on them.  We stood chatting in front of one of them for a while, when suddenly it jumped up towards us.  I got a real fight, and screamed, but when I looked round I saw Mike literally karate chop the mummy in shock.  I guess you had to be there, but oh my god we really laughed.  It was hilarious.  Most people jump when they get a fright, I´ve never seen anyone revert to a martial art.

We headed on through the markets in the street, Mike´s karate chop tickled us for a long time.  It started to rain, and we took shelter in the door of a building.  The security guard asked us if we wanted to go inside, so we entered what turned out to be the town hall (I think), and much to my delight found the painting of the Man on Fire, all over a dome part of the ceiling above a stone staircase.  It was fabulous.  The building itself was really nice, with a courtyard in the centre.  A lot of work was being done in preparation for Independance day, but we were still able to walk through.  When the rain died down, we headed back to the hostel.

We had a look on the net, and asked the guy in the hostel, and found a nice restaurant a bit out of town that did really nice food at reasonable prices, and had mariachi singers, so we headed there for dinner.  It turned out to be a bit touristy, and not super cheap, but the food was unbelievable.  Well, everyone´s except mine that was.  I made the mistake of ordering the roast goat, which I had loved in Kenya, but it turned out that it wasn´t that nice here.  But Rick had the best steak ever, it was really good.  And we all know how Rick loves his steak.  He nearly proposed to this one.

We headed back into town, and called into La Vaca.  We started playing pool, and made friends with Oscar and George, who played doubles with us.  Mexicans are unbelievably friendly, we were only there two minutes and they were offering to take us out and show us the town the next day.  Oscar gave us his business card, and wrote his mobile and home number on it, telling us that if we ever had any problem at all in Guadalajara to give him a call.  We didn´t, but it was a nice offer.

In the meantime, Mike realised he didn´t have his camera anymore.  He went back to the hostel and asked Dave to phone the restaurant, but was told to get in a cab and go back, since if he phoned he´d just be told they didn´t have it.  So he and Nikki headed back, and returned a half hour later, still minus a camera.  Oh dear.

The next day, then, was spent retracing our steps, taking all our photos again.  We must have looked like the strangest tourists, walking up to attractions, posing for a photo, then walking off straight away, without stopping to take any interest in what we had just taken a photo of.  Town was a lot busier because of the speeches and celebrations that night, and we weren´t able to get into the town hall to retake the photos of the Man on Fire.  So I´m afraid you´ll just have to look them up on the net.  We also saw the University, which looked really modern in comparison to the rest of the city.  We found the bar where the party was that night, then headed home.

We weren´t sure where to go that night for the speeches, and didn´t know how safe it would be to head into the crowds in town.  So we went for a quick bite to eat in the Chinese (just ordered the one plate this time), and got a taxi to Mesh´s party.  That was a mistake.  The party turned out to be pretty much a group of friends, none of whom spoke English.  We sat down at a table, and over the next half hour one of the other tables expanded and grew until there was just one large table of mates, and us at another table.  One of the guys we had met in La Vaca came over to chat to us, but left soon after where neither party could understand what the other was saying.  We made our excuses to Mesh, and headed back to La Vaca.

It turned out to be a great night.  We watched the speeches on the tele, and they showed the celebrations around the country, and around the world.  After that, a Mariachi band started up, and a guy sitting at the next table accompanied with the crying and laughing that goes along with it.  It was great.  Mike and Rick headed over to the hostel to get Dave, who had said he might head out there, and they arrived back with two more hostellers in tow - Chris, from Canada, and Min He, a Korean girl.  We all had a great laugh, and even had some sneaky tequilas from the remainder of the bottle Nikki had bought us!  We headed on to another Salsa-type bar, where the tequila continued to flow.  The Mexicans don´t drink tequila quite like we do.  Rather than licking salt before and biting lime afterwards, they dip a piece of lime in coarse salt, and suck on that, it was gross.  However in this bar they were serving it differently again - the tequila shot was to be followed by a shot of tomato juice, which was immediately followed by a shot of lemon juice.  It was an odd combination,  but quite nice at the same time.

The night went on into the early hours, and no one surfaced the next day till early afternoon.  Rick and I headed out for some pizza to feed the hungover mob, and the rest of the day was spent lazing about, sleeping, playing scrabble, and chatting to Chris, Michelle from Canada, and Nathan from San Fran, who lived in Guanajuato.

We got up reasonably early the next morning, checked out, and got a taxi to the bus station.  We figured we should get some food, seeing as we had a 4 hour bus journey ahead of us, but it turns out we needn´t have bothered.  Before getting on the bus, we were handed a pack with sandwiches, buscuits, coffee sachet, and our choice of drink.  For roughly 13 pounds, we got a luxory coach, with way more leg room than you get on any first class train.  Three films played during the trip (it was unfortunate that they were dubbed and not subtitled).  There was a toilet, and a hot water machine down the back.  This thing was unbelievable.  I was quite tired so I pushed my seat back till it was almost vertical (there was no one behind me, but I don´t think they would have minded if they were!), lifted up my leg rest, and slept for about an hour and a half.  It was the most comfortable sleep I´ve ever had on public transport.  Nice.

Mozzie bite status: Got a good four or five, but the others came off worse.  And mine are going that really weird deep red colour.  Hmmm....