February 19 & 20th - return to La Peñita

The trip home was about 4 hours through the cooler, higher and drier Guadalajaran countryside down to the warmer, moister ocean breezes of La Peñita.  Here are some photos of the trip from Guadalajara toward La Peñita:

Guadalajara is in a climate region called temperate with dry winters (while La Peñita area is tropical wet and dry).

agave fields

There are large cacti in parts of this temperate with dry winter area

Conifer and oak forests are most common in the highlands.  There are white pine, other pines, oak birch, fir and hazelnut trees.

Scrubland and savannas are found on the slopes toward the Pacific between the oak forests and tropical deciduous forest. 

Lava fields near Tequila

Pines

Corn and sugar cane fields

Tequila Volcano (in the distance) erupted 200,000 years ago (2920 meters)

The volcanic soil is ideal for growing agave

Agave hearts being harvested and loaded near town of Tequila

inland lake

Back in the tropical wet and dry region near La Peñita with tropical deciduous forest.

Kirk was glad to see us.  Although, I am sure he was a bit sad to leave his cushy couch life at our friends.  We spent Feb 20 taking it easy and in our Spanish lesson.   

February 18 - Tonalá

We took a taxi to Tonalá today to shop the large artisan market.   It was huge!!!!!

making ceramics

glassware

Beer Burro

After walking through a hundred or more shops we returned to our hotel and had dinner there.

February 17 - Guadalajara Day 2 - Zapopan & Tlaquepaque

We had breakfast in our hotel then headed for the Rotunda de los Jalisciences Ilustres four blocks from our hotel where we caught a double decker bus for the Zapopan tour.  Zapopan is a city and municipality that is part of the Guadalajara metropolitan area.

Rotunda

waiting for the bus

our guide told us to keep low when there were wires, hmm

no one came up to warn us of the bridge, Mexico leaves that to natural selection

lots of beautiful old estates turned into shops or B&B's

In the afternoon a few of us decided to continue with the double-decker bus and went to  Tlaquepaque.  The tickets ($100 pesos) were good for as many tours as you could take in a day and you could get on and off as you liked.  In Tlaquepaque, we got off and went to the artisan market for several hours.

La Vaca Argentina restaurante

We finished off the day with a great meal, pricey though (about the same as Canada).

February 15 & 16 - Guadalajara

February 15 was spent prepping for Guadalajara.  February 16 dawned with us dropping Kirk at friends and boarding the Primera Plus bus to Guadalajara.

arrival at Guadalajara

We took a 25 minute taxi ride to the Hotel Morales which was a very nice 19th century neoclassical inn.

Hotel Morales lobby

outside our room

view from our balcony

Hey that guy looks familiar.  Horse carriages lined up by the park.

After freshening up, a few of us headed out to walk through some of the historic downtown area.

Guadalajara Cathedral

Governor's Palace

José Clemente Orozco painting in Governor's palace (undergoing touch up)

Guadalajara Cathedral

 After wandering about for a few hours we went for supper at La Chata reputed to be one of the best Mexican restaurants in the city and right across from our hotel.  We tried a number of dishes including 3 kinds of mole sauce. I settled for the mole poblano (about 26 ingredients in it) on chicken enchiladas.  As we walked out of the restaurant, a horse and carriage caught our eye.  Dwende was our horse.  We toured for an hour on a lovely night.

Baño pit stop at a restaurant, Cam patiently waiting in carriage 

Dwende didn't seem to be bothered by the traffic on certain streets.

Guadalajara University and other buildings were lit up in the historic district.

I gave our driver 20 pesos to by a manzana (apple) or a zanahoria (carrot) for Dwende.  Our Spanish, although not great, is improving.   Luckily we had learned our fruits and veggies in Spanish last week.