First Time in Guadalara in 35 Years or More

Saturday, Jan. 3, 2015--Guadalajara

Wes and I flew down yesterday on Interjet.  It's only a 2-hour non-stop flight, and the airline is great.  Ticketing is much like Southwest--the earlier you buy a ticket, the cheaper it is.  They allow two free checked bags per person.  But unlike Southwest, they allow you to make seat assignments, and they give free drinks (including alcoholic beverages) on their flights.  We will return by Interjet also, but from Mexico City on another non-stop flight.  Interjet flies from San Antonio non-stop to Monterrey, Mexico City, Toluca, and Guadalajara.

Our hotel has a free breakfast buffet--a Mexican-style one.  This morning, there were refried beans (very runny, very light ones that are different from those in San Antonio), tortilla chips with a green chile sauce to put over them (their version of chilequiles), barbacoa (roasted cow head meat) in green chile sauce, orange juice, coffee, fresh fruits (papaya, mango, and watermelon) with sauces to put over them, cereals, sweet breads, fantastic bolillos (a Mexican version of French bread which is crusty and so much better than the fake versions we have in San Antonio), jam, etc.  It's possible to order eggs freshly made.  The buffet was different, and it was filling.

We walked a lot today.  We went westward from the historical center of town through the Zona Rosa and Minerva districts.  These are areas that are more modern and are also popular with tourists. 

Then we spend part of the afternoon walking to the new bus station on the edge of town.  We could not get information about which buses went there, but we knew the right street from our hotel.  We copied down the numbers of the buses leaving that area.  Then when we arrived at the bus station, we checked off the ones we found stopping there (about 3 buses of our list of 10 buses).

We got our tickets to take us to our next location, but even that wasn't easy.  The bus station consists of many terminals around a large loop (much like an airport).  First, we knew the bus company as Autovia and could not find it.  Some taxi drivers kept telling us it was two doors down (where we had already passed).  We asked again at one bus counter, and the lady pointed one direction and said, "The caballero."  I went to the guy down the way, and his counter said La Linea.  It was only then that we discovered the full name of the bus company is La Linea de Autovia. But then the lady (who helped us instead of the man who was busy) didn't know about any buses to our destination.  I showed her the printout from the tourist office the day before.  She searched and searched.  Finally, she found it.  There is only one bus each day, but we already knew that.  She, like everyone else, wanted to tell us we would have to go throuh Morelia.  But then she realized we knew what we were talking about!

There was a Sam's Club across the street from the bus station, so we went into there and tried their samples, checked the prices for tequila, and watched to see what people were buying.  We decided to eat there, since it had been about 7 hours or so since we had eaten breakfast.  We each had a ribeye burger, chunky fries with cheese, and a cola.

After catching the bus back to our hotel, we put on long sleeves and went back to the Cathedral area to watch people for about two hours.  Guadalajara is a nice city, but we had more fun last year in Veracruz.  At the latter, we could watch people, see the dancing on the squares, walk along the waterfront, etc.  There was more variety to what we could do to entertain ourselves in the plazas.