Guadalajara
We (Kurt and I) arrived in Guadalajara on Saturday afternoon, where we were staying with some fellow vols and went out to dinner with a bunch of other vols from the area. The next morning, after breakfast in the big market (San Juan de Dios), we wandered around the historic center and saw the cathedral, theater, other old buildings, horse carriages that clutter the streets in the downtown (think along the same lines as the ones in downtown Chicago), and a building that is filled with murals from one of Jalisco’s most famous painters, José Clemente Orozco.
Tequila
Monday was the day for a trip to Tequila, about 1.5 hours outside of Guadalajara and the center of the tequila region of Mexico. Tequila is made from blue agave and to be called Tequila, must come from a certified region of Mexico. The town of Tequila is home to two of the larger distilleries in Mexico, Jose Cuervo and Sauza. We started off in the Sauza Family museum and then wandered through the Tequila Museum that had an interesting collection of barrels and unique bottles. In addition to the large distilleries, there are several smaller ones. We ended up with a free impromptu tour of one (El Llano), though they were between production rounds so it wasn’t operating that day. For the actual tasting and big tour we settled on Sauza. Our tour ended up to be a whooping group of four people total, and one of the other people used to work for Sauza, so we got some added perks at the open bar afterwards. It is a normal factory tour that takes you through the distilling process from whole agave to the final bottle and along the way got to sample some 4 year old oak barrel aged tequila straight from the barrel. (Side note, Jim Beam just bought out Sauza so there are now a lot of Chicago connections where and the oak for the barrels all comes from Kentucky since there is so little left in Mexico now). The tour ends in the family’s old hacienda for some more sampling. While a normal tour would include a free drink, having a former employee with us got us a pair of tamarindo margaritas, 1 year aged tequila, and a paloma (tequila and grapefruit soda).
Zapopan and the Mirador
The friends we stayed with actually live in Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara, so we went to explore the center of Zapopan, with some fountains, arches, a modern art museum, and big church (surprise, surprise).
Then we headed over to a park called the Mirador (or lookout) that is on the outskirts of Guadalajara and sits on the edge of a big canyon. Its really pretty and the canyon walls are fairly well forested (a sometimes rare site in Mexico), the only downside is the poor water quality in the river that was clearly evident even from a high vantage point.
The friends we stayed with actually live in Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara, so we went to explore the center of Zapopan, with some fountains, arches, a modern art museum, and big church (surprise, surprise).
Then we headed over to a park called the Mirador (or lookout) that is on the outskirts of Guadalajara and sits on the edge of a big canyon. Its really pretty and the canyon walls are fairly well forested (a sometimes rare site in Mexico), the only downside is the poor water quality in the river that was clearly evident even from a high vantage point. Tuesday night, we went to lucha libre. This lucha experience was a little different from the family-oriented lucha in Metztitlan a couple weeks ago. It definitely had better wrestlers, costumes, and taunting from the crowd.
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