Every year, we like to do some inland traveling. This year, in the company of Merry & BJ,
we headed for Guanajuato. Vic from s/v
Charisma drove us to the bus station bright and early on a Monday morning. Our first stop was in Tonola, a suburb of
Guadalajara where there is a huge artisan market. We checked
in at the Hacienda del Sol, a hotel that I’d found on the net offering
rooms for $340 per night (about $30)
It didn't look much like a hotel, you had to walk thru the Tequilla Factory to get to the front desk, then walk thru the garage to get to the rooms, but once there, the small rooms were very nice, clean and newly renovated and decorated with the local art.
Although it wasn’t market day, there were
many little shops and stalls set up displaying their wares…pottery, copper wall
hangings, furniture, vases etc, many of the artisans working on site creating new works of art.
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| Anyone interested in bathroom reno "Mexican style" |
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| "These boots were made for walking"....very carefully |
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After breakfast, we took another bus to Leon….the Leather
Capital. Many hotels around the bus
station and market. The first one we cam
eo was Hotel Italy, only $300 per night.
We had a look and decided to stay the night. Headed out on our shopping trip to the
building that we thought was the Mercado de Peil (Leather Market) Turned out to be just a fancy shopping center
with Americano prices. Went the other
direction and found all the stalls and tiendas with much better pricing. Bought a couple of purses, belts, shoes &
boots.
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| A sea of purses in every color of the rainbow |
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The City of Guanajuato,
founded in the mid 1500’s ,is an old silver and gold mining town that is now a
Usesco World Heritage site . Brightly
painted homes, colonial buildings and landscaped plazas are all crammed onto
the slopes of the ravine.
We were met at the bus station by one of the local tour
guides who arranged a hotel for us, $570 per night which included a Mexican
style breakfast. He also arranged a city
tour for us, but it wasn’t so great…no English speaking guides, and they just
wouldn’t speak slowly enough for me to understand. The tour was very scripted, no time for
questions etc, and they took us to some very phoney or Disney type museums and
a candy store where we got to sample some local candy and flavoured liquors. We did however get to drive thru the maze of
tunnels under the city. The first of
the underground tunnels was along the dried up Rio Guanajuato riverbed. The river was diverted when it flooded in
1905 and now eight additional roadway tunnels have been constructed and most of
the vehicular traffic uses the route.
We did our own walking tour of Guanajuato. We started by taking the Funicular (incline
railway) up to the El Pipila monument
which overlooks the city.
I felt
like we were looking down on a Legoland City with all the colored block houses
tucked neatly into the mountain side. We
also noticed an absence of grafitti,
billboards and signage in general in this immaculately painted and
maintained city.
Our plan was to continue on to San Miguel de Allende to tour
the botanical gardens there, but the weather has turned cold and rainy, so it
wouldn’t be a very enjoyable tour of the garden. So, we decided to return to Guadalajara where
we checked into the Posada Regis Hotel
where we have stayed a few years ago.
The price had gone up considerably,
I guess due to some renovations they have done, but I don’t think they
are finished yet, we still got rained on while sitting on the toilet ! Following day, it was still too wet to walk
about town, so took a taxi to Telaquepaque to try to find the Tequilla del
Senor Distillery. Guess my guide book
must be out of date, as no one, including the taxi drivers seemed to . know where it was. So, back on the bus to return to Mazatlan,
the Tequilla factory and San Miguel will have to wait until another year.
Photo Gallery
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| Recycling has arrived in Tonola |
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| Bus stop vendor selling healthy snacks |
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| One of the many callejons (alleys) in Guanajuato |
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| Beautifully painted picket fences |
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| A Plaza in Guanajuato |
