It took us a while to realize that we could leave our Ruby parked / stored in the RV park while we take off on a driving trip for a vacation! As the park was beginning to thin out in Mid-March, we opted to go inland on an 11 day tour through the main cities of Guadalajara, Leon and Guanajuato. With our bags packed, car loaded and Ruby locked up we headed out on Mar 19^th up the 70D, where our first pit stop was the city of Magdalena; their claim to fame is opal mines! We parked the car and headed into an opal shop, where I might have bought a pair of small opal earrings! A nice walk around to see the church and centro before we hopped back in the car heading to El Castillo de Tequila (Tequila Castle); this is the distillery in El Arenal, Jalisco and the home to Adictivo Tequila. We were introduced to this tequila brand by Todd’s buddy Dallas a few years ago, and we were looking forward to this tour and tasting. We had our own private tour of the Castle including the bottling, the barrels and tasting room. Due to safety, we weren’t able to go outside to see the actual harvested, cooked or distillation tanks of the agave plant. What we did find out was “how” Tequila was invented. The story goes something like a bolt of lighting hit an agave plant, heating up and fermenting the starch in the plant, realizing they could drink this fermented agave plant. Here is pics of the tour: Magdalena-and-adictivo.html We then went into the tasting room to taste 3 different tequila’s (blanco, reposado and anejo). This is what we learned about tequila tasting:

• Drink it at room temperature
• Use a glass similar to a champagne flute
• Check its validity by dipping fingers in it and rubbing it on your hand. If its not sticky its real tequila
• Swirl it around in the glass and look for the legs
• Inhale (hold your breath), take a swig and move it around the mouth, swallow, then breath out through your mouth

Cantarito’s and our complimentary cups!

This 2 ½ hour tour and tasting resulted in the purchase of a few bottles and an introduction of the famous Mexican drink called the Cantarito, served in a ceramic cup.  Denise had been asking me for a few weeks if I had tried this drink….and I swear I hadn’t seen it anywhere in our travels. It was a very refreshing drink and once we left the Tequila/Guadalajara area, we never saw it again in our travels.

Back in the car as we headed to our tiny house cabin on the lake in the town of Poncitlan, 30 mins east of Chapala. Google loves taking us on the “shortest routes” and this doesn’t always work best in Mexico. Drive-to-tiny-house.html The house was really cool…..at first! It was 2 – 20 foot Seacans put together, but when we arrived the girl asked us if we wanted mosquito netting or spray for the night! We said no we are good and wondered why we would need that…until Todd walked around and noticed that the doors and windows weren’t “sealed” to the walls and there were no screens in the windows. We headed out to the closest town to find some tape and dinner. We had no problem finding tape….but had a helluva time finding food, even a taco stand open at 8 pm was impossible to find. We back tracked to the next biggest town on the other side of the house and were lucky enough to find 1 open taco restaurant. With full bellies, we headed home to tape the doors and windows. We were exhausted and ready for bed. We have had many airbnb’s in Mexico that only provide you with a sheet, sometimes there are no blankets, and at this location, they had 2 what looked like pillows but were actually separate blankets on the bed for each of us BUT they were so small….Todd kept calling them the doily’s! Tiny-house.html

We had a full day planned to Chapala, Ajijic and Jocotepec. In hindsight we should have started with the one furthest away, but we started with Chapala that was the closest. This town was lovely! A walking tour along the malecon and through centro. This is the largest lake in Mexico and I expected it to smell bad, but it didn’t so that was a bonus. The water wasn’t clear….more murky, but still a nice lake town. We opted to drive through Ajijic and on to Jocotepec to see what it was all about – mostly the same, a malecon and town centro. We then went to Ajijic last and had a fantastic dinner here at el Charro! Ajijic-malecon.html On our way back home, we were driving through Chapala and saw goat milk for sale; basically a goat being fed in the back of a truck, and anyone who wants milk, milks the goat into a container. I didn’t get this on camera, but I’m sure you can visualize. It was a full day of exploring and travelling and we crashed when we got home.

We were gone by 9:30 the next morning, heading in to Guadalajara for a few days. Our apartment was on the 5^th floor of a building in the Colonel Americana district. We picked this location as it was a walkable area and had lots to do. The first night we went walking and ended up at El Gallo Altanero. This bar is on the top 50 bars in the world and has been for many years. One of the owners (Alan) was in Canada last fall and did a mezcal bar takeover in Red Deer at 53 on Ross; the drinks were so amazing at this takeover, I told him that I would stop in to his bar in Guadalajara in the spring. The atmosphere and drinks did not disappoint at El Gallo, unfortunately Alan was busy opening another bar and I didn’t get so say HI! Guadalajara-and-the-bar.html

We were up early the next morning (like set your alarm early!) to get an Uber to meet the Jose Cuervo Bus at 8 am to the city of Tequila! Our Uber dropped us off at the meeting point…..along with 300 other people heading to Tequila! Of the 6 buses, there was only  1 that was an English speaking tour bus. We loaded up and drove about 1.25 hours out to a Jose Cuervo agave field where, as we got off the bus, they handed us our first drink (tequila and Jamaica) and they fed us a delicious breakfast of 4 types of tamales. There was a mariachi band playing and a brief lesson on the blue agave, how the plant is cut and harvested. We loaded back onto the bus and then headed to the Jose Cuervo distillation facility in the city of Tequila. We had a tour of how harvested plants come in to the facility, loaded into the ovens, then transferred mash to the tanks, distillation tanks, the barrels etc. This was exciting for both me and Todd – me for the food safety aspect and Todd for the power engineering aspect. After the tour, we headed to a tasting room which was a bit disappointing as it was only 1 type of tequila in this tasting. Once that was over, we had free time for 2 hours in the city of Tequila to explore, eat and walk around. This town did not disappoint; a lot of history and so many distilleries here! We had lunch on the street at  a family taqueria. By 4 pm we were back at the Jose Cuervo facility for a Mexican show (11 piece band with amazing voices and some dancers). The show was about 45 mins long and then we got into a minivan and transported to the train station to board the Jose Cuervo Tequila Train! This was a 2 hour train ride through the agave fields at sunset and we opted for the “all you can eat and drink option”. The train was very cool! Behind us was (what we assumed) a bachelor party and they were already in full party mode! Our assigned seats were actually on a couch, next to a group of 7 people from New Orleans. When the train pulled out…..the party really kicked it up a notch! The bachelor party was VERY loud and got the whole train car on board and the staff was excellent. The train arrived around 8 in Guadalajara and although Todd’s new friends from New Orleans wanted to carry on, I snuck us into an uber and headed home! It was a long day….12 hours from the time we left until we got back home. This is an all inclusive video of the days events in about 3 minutes: Tequila-train.html

The next day (Sunday) in Guadalajara we had a walking around exploration day.  One of the things I love about Mexican cities is all the things that happen on a Sunday. Most big cities shut down  a major roadway for 8 hours in centro to allow pedestrians and bike riders, roller bladers to do exercise and take advantage of being outside. Along with that, there might be pop-up markets and restaurants along the way. We had a later start to our day….not sure why (!) and ubered to our first stop. After that we walked for the rest of the day.

• Museo de Sitio de El Puente de las damas – This was a small underground museum of a bridge that was uncovered during construction; the city streets were built above the old bridge. In its time, the bridge was a major roadway of bringing people into the city of Guadalajara.
• Los dos temples – this was a square with 2 beautiful temples 500 years old, Gothic construction with stone block
• Parc de Revolution – a park built in the 1950’s that used to house a jail. It’s a huge park and linked to the road closure on Sunday’s so there were extra activities going on in this parc
• Templo Expiatorio el Santisimo Sacramento – another of so many gothic churches in centro Guadalajara. There was also a break dancing competition happening right beside this church!

During our walk through centro, we discovered there are small sets of tunnels under the city that were used to move people around. Now a days these tunnels might have bathrooms, jewelry stalls and restaurants. Although we only had a short 2 days in Guadalajara, we loved it and will be back in Guadalajara next week! Guadalajara-first-time.html

We left the next day by 7:30 and enroute to Leon, Guanajuato (slightly northeast of Guadalajara by 2 .5 hours). As we were driving, Todd noticed that Trixie was starting to overheat on the highway. Todd pulled over a couple times to determine the issue and figured it was the thermostat. He limped Trixie 27 km down the highway to the city of Tepatitlan to the autozone for parts. We were then referred to the best mechanics at Servicio Automotiz Cugonza to install…an amazing family run place and the mechanic spoke excellent English. Trixie also blew the fuse to the AC at the same time but they got her all fixed up. All in, parts and labour, $110 with tip. Oh we also had the second best chilaquiles of our lives at Tres Fuego while we waited. The drive through this unexpected town and surrounding area, we saw so many chicken barns….a ways down the road was the major chicken plant Bachoco (again food safety Jill loves this!).

It was a 2.5 hour delay on our trip to Leon, but we eventually arrived at our Airbnb in Centro. Now is a good time to talk about Airbnb’s in Mexico….no two are the same. Sometimes you get no blankets, other times no forks, or furniture other than the bed. We were appreciative in this place that we actually got a sharp knife to cut food and a full set of cutlery, a bath mat and comfortable furniture! However, every Airbnb in Centro will be noisy from things like church bells, loud music at all times of the day, barking dogs and motorcycles. The doors and windows of all the apartments are always facing the street and everything is made of cement …. sound really travels.

After we unloaded the car, made a plan to go checkout the Zone Piel – which is the shopping zone for leathers. Leon is known for its production of leather goods. Aside from checking out the city sites, we were mostly excited about getting some leather goods (boots, shoes, wallet, belt, etc)! Our trek down to zone piel was beyond overwhelming! Everyone wants you to come into their shop to see their leathers. After an hour, decided that we had to go home, do some research on good quality vs not good quality and then come back the next day armed with this information. Our evening walking tour around centro took us to many of the sites we wanted to see! The next day we were up and back to Zone Piel to get shopping. We didn’t go far….and found the one store that came highly recommended (Botas el Macreado). Both me and Todd bought some cowboy boots for very reasonable prices….Todd’s might even be Ostrich leather! That shopping experience was well over an hour from the time we got into the store. We toured a bit more down to the Plaza Calzar y Vestir for wallets, belts and a few other things. We were desperate for shade and got back in the car to checkout the MULZA Footwear Outlet (more than 1 Million pairs of footwear to chose from!). It was a Tuesday and pretty quiet at the mall. I bought new sandals and almost another pair of boots, hat and shirts…..outlet mall is way less stressful than the Zone Piel as the shop keepers aren’t trying to reel you in to their stores. Our drive back home took us on a new route and we found an HEB grocery store (HEB is my favourite Texas Grocery chain!). Of course I had to stop in….it wasn’t quite the same but still great! Our overall impression of Leon was it was very bike friendly, very clean and the bus system (like Guadalajara) was very efficient and had their own bus lanes. They also had this really cool roadway that ran along the arroyo that was super efficient and kept traffic moving. I took zero pictures in the daytime in Leon and nothing really worth sharing so all you get is a tour of our apartment:  Leon-apartment.html

The next day we loaded up the car and drove another 1.25 hrs down the road is the city of Guanajuato; it’s known for its silver mining history and colonial architecture. The landscape is that the city is built on hills, very colorful and a huge chunk of the roadways are underground tunnels. We had thought it was old mining roads that they just merged into the city road system, but that was incorrect. The tunnels are a network of channels that help lead traffic away from the city center. These tunnels have different layer crossroads and underground junctions. All of the tunnels have sidewalks and even some of them have bus stops. This was a highlight for us for sure! Driving through the tunnels and the skinny one-way streets was super crazy! We spent 2 days here just driving, touring and walking everywhere. They had so many museums; they had a highway / route dedicated to them. Our first pitstop was a mummy museum. The climate of Guanajuato provides an environment which can lead to a type of natural mummification. The bodies here were from 1870-mid 1950’s. This museum was super creepy, especially the babies and after we didn’t know why we went! But we did. I will warn you….the first video has mummies. Museums.html

Next was the Museo Ex Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera – this was a grand house and gardens from the 1600’s and was this place cool! Blew our minds cool! Up next was a silver mine museum and got to walk down the steps to where they mined Silver-mines.html . And then ended up at 2 other museums which were mostly ruins and you could just walk around…these are always very cool! We did all this before we checked in to our Airbnb! Here is our departmento: Our-casa.html

We ate in on our first night as we had food that needed to be eaten, but didn’t stop us from touring around after dinner. Night time activities in Guanajuato are awesome…there so much to see and they light everything up at night. they also have mariachi type bands that walk around all night and try and get you to come with them and sing (for a 4 of course). The great thing about staying centro is how close we are to all things by walking. We basically did a walking tour the next full day starting with a walk down to the cable car and checking out the Hero statue. We did drive through the tunnels for a bit in the afternoon….this is also when we got pulled over by the police for no front plate and to check our documentation (TIP) on the car. We told him there are no front plates in Canada and Todd hoped he couldn’t read English to see that he handed him an expired drivers license. He figured out the expired license and was going to take our back vehicle plate until we paid $1600 pesos for the fine of expired license. Todd told him he has never been pulled over before and we are only here for 2 days to enjoy the food and culture. If he could cut us a break and let us go on with our business, that would be great! And he did! (Insert horseshoe) we will now keep a valid license in Trixie.  Touring-guanajuato.html We had a delicious meal that night at Puerto la Pena and then a walk through centro one last time. Centro-at-night.html  The next morning we left around 9:30, and Todd took us the long way out of town just so he could drive the cool roads and tunnels one last time:  One-last-drive.html

As we headed back to Guadalajara and the reason we did this was so we could attend a soccer game in Mexico! The drive from Guanajuato to Guadalajara was about 3 hours. We couldn’t check into our Airbnb until 4, so we had to stay occupied until then. We unexpectedly pitstopped at a traditional bar called the La Berria Cantina. The old school cantina’s are mostly for drinking and usually they provide snacks for very list cost. this one said they had torta’s and taco’s so we stopped in. After we ordered drinks we realized there wasn’t going to be any snacks other than the cucumbers and nuts they put on the table! So we drank up, ate the snacks and headed out to the Akron Stadium to go buy tickets for the Mar 29th futbol game Chivas de Guadalajara vs the Cruz Azul (Mexico City). We had seen the tickets for sale online a few days ago, and then the game and the tickets disappeared from the WWW. So we thought if we drive to the stadium, surely we can get tickets. But as we found out from a security guard, the game was moved to the Jalisco Stadium. So we drove there….and some guy told us they aren’t selling tickets to fans yet, but will decided by noon tomorrow! WTF?! Todd did some googling and turns out at the Mar 8th game, a fan in the stands threw a glass bottle. So as punishment the association moved them to the shitty stadium and threatened to not have fans attend. The whole reason we came back to Guadalajara was for this game! Well after we checked into our airbnb Todd checked online and tickets were now on sale…we bought tickets!

Saturday we wanted to do the hop on hop off bus. They had an English version at 1 pm and this specific tour was an hour and a half. It was a great tour, Todd liked it cause he actually got to look around instead of drive. Hop-on-hop-off.html At the end of the trip we headed for a drink and then to the biggest market (home to 2800 vendors) before we went home to grab a bite to eat before the soccer game. We left around 7:30 for the 9:05 pm game. Good thing we had lots of time as traffic and parking was a nightmare. Not to mention standing in line to get patted down by security and then trying to find our seat….only to find out 5 minutes before game start that there is no assigned seating to this game because they changed stadiums! So sit wherever you want! It was slow game…Cruz scored 1 goal and that was it. There was no super jumbo tron, no announcers, and no replays. We assume this to be the case as to not rile fans up? Not sure. It was a good experience and we can say we have been!

As we packed up our little apartment for the last time and loaded the car for the last time…..we  set the google map to Zona Arqueológica Teuchitlán o Guachimontones to check out the grassy pyramid. This was very cool! Soccer-and-pyramids.html

It was a crazy 12 days and we loved every minute of it!

Our 12 day trip