With Lolly in Chacala visiting, we wanted to plan something especially fun and different.
It came up that we wanted to take a short trip to Guadalajara soon to visit the LDS temple there and see the city. When she got excited about the idea, we immediately delved into planning and scheduling to take the short 3 hour trip the week before she flew home.
We had some great advice from a friend in Chacala who had visited Guadalajara just weeks prior.
During her first week there, she stayed in Tlaquepaque. She explained it as a sort of suburb town that got surrounded as Guadalajara grew, and is now encompassed by the city. She explained it as a nicer part of town where they have an amazing Centro (town square, usually next to a Cathedral, where it's open and lots of people hang out there in the evenings), and lots of galleries where they showcase the local artisan work.
Her second week she stayed in Tonalá. She told us that Tonalá is more gritty and ghetto, another town that got swallowed up by Guadalajara, and is where most of the artwork is actually made.
She told us that downtown Guadalajara is crazy! That is where they have the largest market in the world.
So after a bit of online research, we decided to follow her suggestions and focus on the two artisan towns, Tonalá and Tlaquepaque (pronounced: T-la-kay-pa-kay), which are only about 10 minutes away from each other. And we headed off...
The Bed and Breakfast that we found was absolutely perfect for us. It was only 2 blocks away from the Centro in Tlaquepaque. The bedroom was small and rustic and the grounds were filled with beautiful gardens. The breakfasts were off the hook, delicious! It was The Hotel Rosa Morada
TRAVEL TIP: Upon checking out, the manager offered that many places in Mexico will give a discount for a client paying with cash, instead of booking online and paying with a credit card. He insisted that for our next trip, we call him directly to place the reservation. We tried it with another place we recently stayed and got an awesome discounted price! It probably won't fly at the Hilton but if you choose a privately owned place it's worth calling the hotel directly and asking if they have a cash discount available.
Once we checked into our hotel the first thing on our list was to visit the temple. We didn't have any of our own temple clothes with us and they don't have clothing services there! But Jade had called ahead and the temple worker told us they would track down some clothes for us to borrow.
Driving through town the temple sort of snuck up on us! It's not on a big hill like it is in many places in Utah. It's sort of small but it was unmistakable as temple property, perfectly manicured and majestic.
The workers were unbelievably nice and helped us get outfitted for our session. It was absolutely terrifying to leave the comfort of Jade's Spanish abilities and head into the women's dressing room with Lolly, where none of the workers knew almost any English. Luckily, they were patient with me and we got everything we needed. The lent us clothes they usually have set aside for the missionaries.
The session was beautiful and we had an amazing time. The love and holiness in and around the temple was overwhelming and I realized how much I have missed it since leaving Vegas. And it's always fun to go to the temple with Lolly and Jade, seeing how happy and proud she is of her amazing son. I am one lucky girl!
We had a quick photo session and afterwards headed back to our B&B. On our way, Lolly exclaimed, "They've got Thrifty Ice Cream here, 7-11, and roundabouts, it's like we're in Summerlin!"
Hahahaha... we must have been a while in the village, I think.
Back in Tlaquepaque it was peak time to head out to Centro and get some delicious food! It was filled with different vendors and was such a pleasure to walk around enjoying the scenery.
I had my first real tamale, my first elote (grilled corn on the cob with mayonaise and chili powder), shared some potatoes with Lolly, and there was one heaven-sent man who made scones, filled them with the topping of your choice (my choice is always chocolate), and then rolled them in cinnamon sugar like a churro. Hello, AMAZING!
How big do you want your piece? 10 peso piece? 15 pesos? This is a 10 peso piece, about 75 cents worth.
Filled with chocolate and cinnamon sugar, we hit the sack for an early morning of shopping. We had planned our trip around the Thursday Tonalá market.
Bright and early we hit the streets. We had some ideas about some things we wanted to look for, but were mostly there for the experience. And WHAT an experience it was!
We found a field to park in for only 20 pesos for the day, which was incredible because there was absolutely no parking ANYWHERE else that we could see. The parking lot was right across the street from this lot full of vendors. This seemed like a more permanent part of the market and was much more organized and had wider walkways.
Did I mention it was raining? Yeah, that was fun. At least it stayed cool out.
Then we ventured out onto the street. The side streets off the main highway were completely shut down and full of vendors selling everything from fine art and furniture to hand-blown glassware to Bonzai trees to funky homemade cleaning products. There were pirated DVDs, candles in every shape and size, cheap kitchen appliances, beautiful pottery, crappy pottery, hand-sewn lace table runners, and everything in between.
Jade and I were contemplating a dish set so we checked out nearly every Talavera store in town.
Tonala is known for being like a homeland for artistic types. Everywhere you look you see things like these... It's so beautiful!
We walked around Tonalá for 4 hours before we headed back to Tlaquepaque. We tried our first Tortas Ahogadas (sandwich bathed in salsa). Then we decided to check out the galleries there and ended up walking around for another 3 hours straight so of course I got another churro that night. Totally deserved it, too.
Jade's brother Tom suggested we check out a Lucha Libre fight while in the city and Lolly and I got SO excited about it but sadly, there wasn't a fight till Sunday. Next time, for sure.
The next morning we actually went back to Tonalá for some more shopping. We found this great ceramic store where we got to meet the guys in the back painting their clay! Their stuff was gorgeous. Lolly loved the style and got some really great pieces.
This place (below) didn't look sketchy enough to deter our curiosity so we went in. It was the top floor of an unfinished building, boxed up by chain-link fence, full of... wait for it... more crap.
Yep... crap of every shape and size.
If you can believe it, we actually went back to Tlaquepaque and walked around some more, finishing off our shopping, picking up those last things that we had said, "If I can't find it anywhere else I'll get it here." Those things were in the galleries so they were usually just a little bit more expensive.
All in all we got some really great stuff and made some incredible memories. These are a few of our great purchases. The bottom right picture below is a Wise Man in the nativity we found.
As we headed out of town, we committed some of the beauties of Guadalajara to memory, like their great arches and bridges.
And the greenery, even this tree on the highway that someone calls "home."
As we approached the first toll on the highway back home there were people standing by selling toll passes. Jade and I have been wanting to look into them to save us money on the drive home. We stopped to talk to the guy but our line was moving fast so he kept talking faster to keep up. It was quickly our turn to pass and the guy was almost sweating from trying to keep up with us so we met him on the shoulder on the other side of the toll so he could give us his speech.
When they were running our credit card one guy asked how many people we had in the car. We didn't know why he was asking and we were a little nervous that it would change the price of our pass or something. But then he ran into the building and brought us back 3 ears of piping hot corn for the drive home!
Our good luck soon passed, though, and we hit a seriously torrential rain storm in the mountains on the drive home. It was one of the worst I have ever experienced, making me unbelievably grateful that Jade always drives. It started light, off and on. Then these little waterfalls appeared all around.
And as soon as we hit the narrow roads of the mountain we could hardly see in front of us. The raindrops were huge and heavy and we were driving through the clouds. The lightning and the roadside waterfalls were beautiful.
But Jade got us home safe and sound, with our lives and our valuables still in tact.
