El Centro Guadalajara

On Sunday, we did a bus tour into the downtown and historic center of Guadalajara. Maggie, a friend of Kate’s who is visiting with Kate and Jack, was interested. Although Barb and I have gone in to Guadalajara quite a few times, we had never had the courage to go to the downtown area. Thus, we thought the bus tour would be a good way to get introduced and find our way. We all purchased tickets, but then Maggie came down with a bug only a day or so after arriving. She is not sure if it was something she got here or a bug that she got some years ago on a trip somewhere; that bug periodically flares up. At any rate, she was not well enough to go. Thus, the other four of us went in while Maggie spent most of the day in bed. She seemed to get better on Monday.

Guadalajara was founded by the Spanish in the 1540s. However, the buildings in this downtown and historic center, including the cathedral, were built much more recently. One of the features of Mexico is that they have encouraged and commissioned their artists to decorate their public buildings and spaces with statues and murals commemorating their history. The latter involves recurring bouts of serious conflicts. We went through a number of the historic buildings, including the cathedral. Guadalajara is an archdiocese and several of its archbishops have been cardinals. This includes the archbishop who was murdered about 12 years ago in a very notorious assassination. We also got a chance to go into the opera house. It is huge and very impressive. It has an enormous stage, a fresco ceiling and 5 rows of box seats up to the ceiling along both sides (like European opera houses). We also had close to 2 hours to get something to eat and stroll around. The four of us went to a huge market with many small stores and eating places. That is where we ate. It was an adventure because no one spoke English and we really didn’t know what we were going to get when we ordered. We discovered that under all the parks and walkways there are parking lots. Getting there is also more straight forward than I had imagined. I think that I would be willing to tackle it in future, especially going early on Sunday. When we arrived before 10 a.m., there were not many people around. However, by 2 when we were getting back on the bus (they took us around to other areas of Guadalajara before driving us back to Ajijic), the crowds were building.

Today, Tuesday, the 3 women (Kate, Maggie and Barb) drove in to Tlaquepaque to shop and look around. Jack had to go to the dentist and I decided not to go. Most people enjoy going there and this was no exception.