Guadalajara

I arrived quite early at the 'Hostel Centro Guadalajara', and having read that it had won awards in consecutive years, my first instinct was one of disappointment. It didn't feel particularly clean, and certainly not as welcoming and friendly as the website would have you believe. In some ways I guess this depends on the guests more than anything else, but I still think the way the hostel is run and set up influences this. Whitney (Atlanta) was already staying here however, and when she emerged later in the morning it was good to have a familiar face around. I also met Eric, a Dutch guy, and we chatted about watching the football (Chivas Guadalajara vs Cruz Azul) at a bar somewhere in town. We ended up, thanks to a recommendation from the girl on the hostel reception, in Tlaquepaque. It was a nice part of town, but also quite far (we arrived at half time), and the bar in question was fairly empty and there wasn't much atmosphere. The game also ended 0-0, seems like I can't even see a Mexican goal on the TV...

Back at the hostel I also met Nick, an Australian guy, and Robert. Robert was nice enough but also had his own little ways... He trapped me into a 'follow-up' conversation, even though we hadn't had an original one. When I pointed out this fact, however, he wasn't deterred and soon I was being shown all the comic strips he was working on. He seemed pretty convinced that "a lot of people would be interested in these stories", but they looked pretty dreadful to me. I didn't tell him that obviously, but rather made my excuses and escaped left.

To be honest, I already had a feeling that I wanted to move on to a different hostel, but stuck around at least for a night out with Eric, Nick and Whitney. The bar was ok, but having only slept for a few hours the previous night, I wasn't really in the mood, and as Nick put it, the beer was "going down like a fence post". Having arrived that night, Nick was also feeling like heading back so we got directions from Eric. The map we were given by the hostel was nothing short of pathetic, so we needed sound advice from the Dutchman in order to ensure a safe return to the hostel.

"Go down this street until you reach the big road. Cross it, and then once you get to Madero, go another couple of blocks and you'll reach the road the hostel is on".

Simple enough. Except we didn't encounter the 'big road' on the way to the bar, so problem one was figuring out exactly what constituted "big road". Once that had been established, we ended up wandering the streets for about an hour. Some of which I was glad I had company for (not because I am a romantic homosexual, but because they were a bit scary...) Finally we discovered that the road we wanted was actually before the turning to Madero, not after it as instructed, hence why we had been ambling aimlessly for so long. Cheers for that, "Eric"!

The following morning, I hear from Nick about some shenanigans that had occurred at the hostel the previous night (in the room next door to mine). He woke up in the middle of the night to find the woman from the hostel 'supervising' another random girl hacking his padlock off his locker. Somewhat understandably puzzled, he told the girl that that was his lock. She shrugged and moved onto another locker. The reason this happened was apparently that a guest from the hostel had broken his leg and was in hospital and needed his stuff. Perhaps a decent reason, but not really the best way to go about it from the hostel staff point of view... Added to a number of other factors, this story convinced me to spend my afternoon checking out another hostel. The 'Tequila Hostel' in fact. Not quite the party centre you'd expect from the name, it was clean and homely. Sky TV, a small pool and a guitar! I moved in the afternoon, and kicked up a bit of a fuss when Centro Hostel tried to charge me 60 pesos for 'use of the facilities after 11am'. Eventually they told me not to worry about it. Good.

Because my camera wasn't going to be fixed until Wednesday, I avoided doing too much in the way of sightseeing for the first few days. On Tuesday I went to Wal Mart to buy a pair of trainers. Not the best brand I don't think ('Sky') but not they're not too shabby and were less than 20 quid. Bargain. Not sure they'd go down too well with the girls of Guadalajara though, who are apparently known to be quite "Fresa". When Jenny (see later) asked me if I knew what this meant, I thought my guess of "Strawberry?" was a good one, but apparently the connotations are more along the lines of 'stuck up', 'rah', 'pretentious' etc. Perhaps this is the reason why there are so many hair-extension/wig shops throughout the city. The fact that this stood out to me should tell you how prevalent they are, it's crazy.

Other people I met here were Juan Carlos, Rojina, Arturo and Oscar, who all worked at Tequila Hostel and were really cool. Sean from America was really into his boxing, and despite merely doing it as a pasttime, on one of his trips to the local boxing gym, he managed to end up sparring with Saúl Alvarez, who is touted as the new Mexican boxing sensation! Stef & Hannah from England were a month or so into their Toronto to Rio trip, and joined me for several beers throughout the week, a meal at a restaurant (where they made the salsa in front of us) and inspired me to do some home cooking for the first time during my trip! Daniela from Germany and her fiancé Sal from Mexico. Sal was a cool guy who clearly wasn't a big fan of the Americans. It seemed like any conspiracy theory going, he bought, and every treaty ever written between his country and the US Government was to the detriment of Mexicans. He was also a historian by hobby, which was really interesting for one or two conversations, but when every topic seemed to come back to the corruption of the church, even if I didn't disagree with his thoughts, I felt like suggesting we got hammered instead.

[L to R:] Sal, Daniella, Stef, Hannah, Sean.

Then there was Michael, who I recognised from my time at the Centro Guadalajara hostel, and who only stayed a day or two because he didn't like the fact that people didn't wash their dishes up. Now, as Dan and Edgy will testify, I'm no slouch when it comes to keeping the kitchen clean, but I think when you're staying at a hostel, and the reason no-one washes up is because the cleaner does it all every morning, I think that's taking analness a bit far. Before he left Michael was telling me about a guy he met at the previous hostel who was covered in LA gang tattoos, and 'confided' in Michael that although he was now 'reformed', he had been in prison when he was younger, had robbed people all over the US and if he returns to the States he will probably be locked up again. In addition to these lovely facts, he also trained as part of the Ayrian Nation. Given that Michael is black, I don't blame him for feeling a bit uncomfortable with this guy! It also made me think back to the incident with Nick's locker with a bit more suspicion. Juan Carlos, to his eternal credit, actually told this guy in question earlier in the week that the Tequila Hostel was full. Not sure if my stay would have been quite so cosy otherwise.

On Thursday I finally headed out, camera in hand, to see the city. I found it amazing that I could just keep walking in the same direction and keep coming across new buildings, squares, monuments etc. I bumped into two fellow hostel guests, Kelsey and Jenny (from California and New York respectively) whilst I was out and we headed to the Mercado San Juan de Dios, apparently the largest market in Latin America. And it was indeed pretty massive. Almost a whole floor dedicated to selling electronics and trainers. I wasn't sure how any of the sellers could make money when competition was so fierce.



View across some of Guadalajara's main squares



Mercado San Juan de Dios

In the evening I finally settled down in front of Baltimore Ravens vs. Atlanta Falcons. I had been looking forward to it all week, and hence had brought it up many times with the other guests so they knew not to even think about watching a film or playing XBox. Hardly anyone reading this really cares, so I'll just outline the details... Falcons were winning by a fairly narrow margin the entire game. Ravens scored a Touchdown with 1 minute remaining. I was crestfallen. But then the Falcons found enough time to score a Touchdown themselves and reclaim victory from the jaws of defeat and I was ecstatic. Also emotionally drained, so my plans to head out that night quickly faded, especially as no-one else in the hostel really seemed up for it.

Generally my feelings of Guadalajara were that of a little disappointment. Lots of people had told me that it was an amazing city, better in fact than Mexico City. However, whilst I can't knock it in terms of being a lovely place, and probably a really cool city to live in, I get the impression that these comments are much like someone from Manchester saying that "Manchester is so much better than London". It's really not, so get over it. In addition, my stay at Tequila was really cool and I met lots of great people, but no-one really seemed up for partying, and after hearing that Guadalajara is Mexico's number 1 party city, I couldn't help but feel that when I left on the Saturday, I still had unfinished business there.

There has also been a rather big development in my life since coming to Guadalajara. Most of you know that I have long been a fan of the browns, and have been known to find yellows tempting from time to time. But this all changed in Guadalajara when I came across these beautiful specimens in one of the shopping centres:

New favourites

Now I can add reds and purples to the list. I was obviously talking about M&Ms, what else did you think I meant?

I am writing this from Puerto Vallarta and I have already done a couple of really cool things here, so I intend to post again shortly!

Twig