We landed in Guadalara at a very unsociable 5:30 am having left Tijuana at just after midnight. The flight was only 2 hours but the time differences were taken into consideration too of course. The excellent instructions from IMAC meant we could stumble off the plane and into a pre paid taxi that would take us to our host family. The poor cab driver a rough idea only of where we were headed so spent a good 30 minutes cruising through side streets we found the phone number in our stuff and he made a call. It was literally a block further on. We didn't do too much that day needless to say, bar eat some outstanding Mexican food and sleep. What immediately struck me was the general great health of the Mexicans; press reporting would have it that half the Mexican population was dying quickly from swine flu. Apparently not!
The next day we had to wake up a little early to get into the school for the induction, so it was a horribly early start. We took the bus into town as we'd do every day thereafter and tried to pay attention to the bus station where we got off. Not so, the next two days we got off too early, too late and got generally lost. The reasons for this were the same bus had a,b,c,d and the routes were all slightly different – although stations are pretty much anywhere when the buses stop or you ask the driver. Avoid them as a pedestrian though as they drive like the devil is chasing them. Bus drivers seem to only drive "their" bus and customize heavily.. one had flashing white lights for stopping in addition to the buzzer, as well as a strobe light in the footwell that flashed in time to his raving fifties and sixties tunes.
Anyway, getting back to the school; on the first day we headed in for the induction and were asked to sit a test. As I was an absolute beginner I read through it and then handed it in without filling it in.. what was the point in me wasting time at this point? The students were divided up and we met our teachers and bought the text books etc. Being back at school…. Bells ringing and mainly Spanish students running around learning English.. The school is based in lovely old building with covered courtyards and smallish classrooms where we'd spend 4 hours a day from 9-1 daily. Important places were located quickly, like the coffee shop and bakery. Our class colleagues were one slightly neurotic American lady who despite living in GDL for over a year hadn't managed to learn any Spanish at all and very quickly drove me nuts with frequent outbursts about grammar and learning. One Hollando who was pretty hilarious and had come to Mexico to be with his Mexican girlfriend (picked up Spanish pretty quickly) and then Jen and I. The week after there were a few changes, the American girl thankfully decided she would be better teaching herself after all…and we were joined by a 3rd grade teacher from New Jersey and an expat US chap. Other American students at the school were a nice bunch but definitely fit into the loud American category of tourist, los Gringo's galore.
The teaching was augmented by computer programmes and just hanging out so we slowly but surely learnt enough to supplement our onward travels I hope.
GDL itself is the second largest city in Mexico, it is the home of Tequila and world party beer provider, Corona. Apart from that, it was also filled with some of the oldest churches and cathedrals, buildings left behind by the French and the Spanish. The mixture is spectacular and certainly worth visiting. The city is 1500m above sea level, putting this into perspective; in Europe most ski resorts are based at around this height! Mexico city is 700 meters higher! The surrounding landscape is full of fairly recent volcanic activity, a geologists/volcanologists dream! We arrived at the beginning of the rainy season and it showed. Massive amounts of rain poured down as the heavens opened every day at least once, somehow we avoided getting soaked on any of the days.
Part of the learn Spanish package included a city tour and a town of Tequila tour. The tour of the town was most amusing. We'd spent the day wandering around the city and had a few bottles of beer and water with a light snack. The tour included a meal we'd been told. We found the tour bus and got our seats at the front. The hostess for the tour came around and offered tequila, we felt obliged and had one or two … or four? The tour was a great drive around the city on the top of the bus, but the stop for dinner was much appreciated. A bit touristy, and with a mariachi band to join us, we were given very large sombreros to wear during the meal with the highlight dancing around after the meal- steak and beans or something similar. Back onto the bus to drive around town again, we and the rest were happily waving our hands in the air and ducking branches! We got back into town and had a great night out visiting the various bars before heading home quite the worse for wear.
Touring Tequila was ironically much more sober. The bus left GDL and headed out of town eventually arriving at small production plant outside of the Tequila. We had a good look at how they cut the plants and processed them and to the other tourists horror were not allowed to drink anything as nationwide they had local and regional elections meaning a 48 wide booze ban! The town itself was dominated by the central Jose Cuervo plant, but it is the stuff you get across the world and is pretty grim. Other drinks we'd tried are so much smoother- but it still isn't a drink I'm particularly enamored with, roll on the nice red wine or rum!
The production of tequila was quite interesting, the core of the agave plants which grow for at least 8 years weigh about 50kgs when they harvest them. Then they are steam cooked and crushed. Each core provides enough liquid for around 10 litres of tequila! Then it's double distilled as otherwise it would kill or blind you as the methanol level is very high!
The next day we took a bus down to Puerto Vallarta!
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