Guadalajara, Jalisco

Mural at Palacio de Gobierno

Jose Luis Soto's Vision of Hell

We woke up a bit earlier than usual and went for a walk around our part of Tepic.  It was a cool Sunday morning and everything was quiet.  We noticed that barricades had been erected across some of the streets and were told that every Sunday that section of the main road in the center of the city was sealed off to traffic so that the people stroll around the center of town in peace.

Brenda and I visited the Palacio de Gobierno building which has spectacular ceiling murals by the artist Jose Luis Soto, depicting the brutal history of the area in brilliant colors.  At the rotunda is his vision of hell, which would encourage most people to stay on the straight and narrow, at least for the rest of the day.

Brenda's meal time story: This is a new occasional series in response to many people back in Oz asking about the food here in Mexico.

Lunch at Tepic

In Tepic around lunchtime we settled on a small cafe near the main plaza offering Mariscos (seafood) as many do. We each had the dish pictured - very fresh and tasty grilled fish, the ranchera option, with pleny of healthy accompaniment. The salsa was a little spicy and the avocado outstanding. The purple and white salad was made of chopped red cabbage, red onion and pecans, in a light creamy dressing, very slightly sweetened. The meal including two fresh fruit drinks, lime and orange, cost 152 pesos.

Children Learning Bicycle Safety

In the court yard at the Palacio de Gobierno

We checked out of the Sierra de Alica hotel at 11.30 AM, took a cab to the central bus station, and were fortunate to arrive about 20 minutes before the departure of the next bus to Guadalajara.   We went through airport style security before boarding the bus, with luggage checked and a wand passed over our body.  The inspector asked Brenda why her backpack was so heavy, and inside found books and other mundane items and asked "No Boom Boom?"  The bus was a modern Volvo equipped with big plush seats, seat belts, and drop down movie screens. The cost of the tickets for both of us was only 410 pesos (34.20) which to us represents spectacular value.

We arrived at the central bus station of Guadalajara at  3.45 PM.  This left us with plenty of daylight remaining in order to find a hotel room.  The touring guide had warned to book ahead for the Christmas and Easter holiday season, and I was a bit apprehensive.  We didn't have to wait long for the next city bus to the center of the city 9 kilometers away, at 20 pesos for both of us.

We got off at what we thought was the Centro Historico section of the city and immediately Brenda and I both liked what we saw: a clean modern city with wide avenues and plenty of parks, fountains, monuments, and trees.  We sat down on a park bench to bet our bearings and decided to make for a hotel mentioned in the guide, with the intention of making enquiries at any likely hotels that we saw along the way.  Walking along Madero street we saw the Hamilton hotel and went to the desk.  The price asked was a ridiculously low 160 pesos per night with no TV, and 250 pesos per night with TV.  We asked to see the room.  (Gulp!)  The first room was the one with the TV and we didn't like it at all.  For one thing, at this late in the afternoon it had not been cleaned and I began to wonder what kind of a hotel it was.  We were then taken to the top floor and shown a room that we liked much better.  It was clean, had good ventilation, and was beyond the main traffic of the hotel.    We booked the room for 4 days for a total cost of 640 pesos ($53.33, or $13.33 per night).

OK, it's small, rough, and has little furniture.  But it passed all of our basic tests: toilet flushed, shower worked, both lights worked, had one power point, and above all felt safe.   There are no chairs, two small bed tables with a drawer each, and a short slatted bench.  There is no shower curtain, no towel rail, and no toilet roll holder.  The double bed has a good mattress and two lumpy but adequate pillows.  You could describe the accommodation as two painted concrete rooms with steel doors and window frames.  We figure that in the summer it would intolerable because there is neither air conditioning nor ceiling fan.  But this is a cool time of the year and the room serves our requirement for a simple base of operations.

And we like the people that run it - all women.  There is the polite old lady, the nice younger one, and the young one who does the cleaning accompanied by her 5 year old daughter. 

The blog will know how we fared through this experience but, hey, backpackers have to be ready to walk on the wild side once in a while.