Our last stop before heading inland was Chacala. We didn’t have time when originally passing by to check out this town, but made sure to stay here for a night before driving east. The grass campground on the beach surrounded by palm trees was awesome. The sunset and the fresh caught/cooked fish dinner beachside were a nice farewell to the coast.
Sometimes the weather sucks. It happens. This time it happened while we were spending a few days in Guadalajara. It was safe to say at that point we missed the warm beaches after only 24 hours of separation.
This city of 6 million was a huge change from our little coastal towns of Guayabitos, Lo De Marcos, and Chacala. When we arrived it rained and rained and rained. Luckily there was a brand new movie theatre close by so we were able to catch up on The Hobbit and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. The latter is a great little show about a man who embarks on a round the world journey that he never imagined or expected. Okay, let’s get out of the theatre and continue our own journey! After the rain stops.
The next day the precipitation slowed and we bussed it from the campsite into downtown. After a tour of the historic district and checking out the architecture of years gone by, we hopped on another bus to Tonala. Their Thursday/Sunday markets are huge and absolutely packed with people. If you need to outfit your home with furniture, lamps, or buy yourself Christmas pants this is the place to do it! Wait, “Christmas pants?” you ask. There are these patterned pants Ash has been eyeing every since we started experiencing the colder weather of inland Mexico. Some have awesome reindeer or snowflake patterns and all seem to have soft furry insides that will make you forget that the temperature sometimes approaches 0C (okay, 5C, but it feels like it’s freezing). So far she hasn’t pulled the trigger on a pair of pants, but it’s coming sooner rather than later.
Once we made it back to Guadalajara there was but one thing left to do: check out proper Mexican wrestling. We need this in Canada. Our $10 ringside seats were awesome. Even though we didn’t have a clue what was going on (due to our garbage Spanish) we had a blast. The athleticism of these guys was incredible. Best part about the wrestling? A free t-shirt thrown from the ring! You’ll see Richard wearing this “Soy Super Popular” shirt in future photos!
Making it back to the campground from downtown Guadalajara was interesting to say the least. We can usually navigate busses and trains with ease, but we were thrown for a loop here. After the wrestling match we took one bus to the highway that would lead us south to the campground and then were told to transfer one of the next three busses to Tlajomulco. Too bad none of the next five busses actually went to Tlajomulco. Hmm. At 9:55pm, five minutes before the last bus, we hopped on the next bus going in the right direction assuming that it would at least get us close to where we were going. After 15 seconds the driver took a hard right and dropped the hammer. By the time we were able to get off we were even farther away from where we were originally. And thus began our 2.5 hour walk home at 10pm. We wanted to go for a hike anyway…
Those Christmas pants look like the way to go!