Guadalajara & Tequila

Sandra came for her Spring Break, and rather than going to Cancun or Puerto Vallarta and getting shit faced and sun burned like most gringos would, we decided to go to Guadalajara, Mexico, the second biggest city after DF with 4 million people. We took the ETN bus, which is pretty much like flying first class. 

The Zócalo of Guadalajara with the iconic church. This church is super iconic for Guadalajara and taxi drivers would have just the outline as a bumper sticker, two triangles connected with an arc. People in DF don't like people in Guadalajara. This seems typical of any two big cities in close proximity: London and Paris, Barcelona and Madrid, New York and Boston, San Francisco and LA, Shelton and Olympia...

Mercado de San Juan. HUGE market with clothing, food, leather, house hold supplies, everything.

At the mercado, we tried the Guadalajara typical dishes, Torta Ahogada (drowning sub sandwich), birria (goat stew), and carne en su jugo (meat stew). Below is the birria. The goat gave it a very strong flavor, but I really enjoyed it. Sandra, not so much.

One of the musts in Guadalajara is the Hospicio Cabañas museum. At first we were like, "what the eff?" as there was a bunch of crappy modern art like these newspapers on the ground,

Or this guitar string nailed to a wall...

But then we got to the crown jewel, the murals painted by José Clemente Orozco who painted the walls and ceiling of a chapel. The Michelangelo of Mexico. The murals showed the history of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. It showed the Spaniards are robotic murder machines and was pretty gruesome. Sandra was surprised to see her country cast is such light.

This mural was painted on the interior or a dome. Therefore, depending on where you are standing, the perspective of the figures completely changes as different characters get larger and smaller and change orientation. Here the man/devil on fire looks like he is walking, whereas on the other side of the chapel, he is laying. 

Couldn´t resist

These murals were also done by Orozco, but at the Palacio Municipal, not the chapel. These murals show Mexico´s fight against Nazism. Also extremely impressive.

After feeling accomplished and culturalized after our day of seeing downtown Guadalajara and the museums, we went to Tequila, Mexico. We hired a guy to take us in his personal car. He picked us up at 10 am, and it was literally just us, him, and his girlfriend until 8 pm. He explained the whole process starting from the agave fields (below):

This one was new for me. Horse parking:

More agave fields. Plants take about 5-7 years to reach maturity.

To the Jimador. Yes, that is a brand of tequila, but it is referring to the guy who cuts open the piñas, or agave hearts, for harvesting using a sharpened spade. The spade is extremely sharp and the jimador sharpens it after every 3 plants or so. 

To the horno, where they cook the piñas with steam for several hours.

Ummm... I thought I had some more pictures showing the distillation process, but we started drinking tequila samples so... you can refer to my post from 2013 showing the process:

http://leroyinargentina.blogspot.mx/2013/12/guadalajara-tapatio-y-tequila.html

The proper technique to taste tequila is:

1) Absolutely no lime or salt. Sorry. This is to mask the flavor of shitty tequilas.

2) Taste a few drops of the tequila to get your mouth ready for the tasting.

3) Put the tequila in your mouth and swish it around for between 3 and 10 seconds, kind of like Listorine. The goal is to get it to touch all parts of your mouth.

4) Swallow tequila. Don´t open your mouth. Inhale deeply through your nose and exhale slowly. 

5) Open mouth.

6) Perform a loud Mexican yell. Aiii Aiiiiiiiiiii AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (optional).

This sign says "Baby on Board", but then you read the subtitle "(but with moderation)" and realize that it is actually saying "Drink on Board."

Mural in downtown Tequila.

And eventually we got a little tipsy, and this photo happened. We only bought one bottle of tequila for about $12, so we didn´t go too crazy. Not like some of my friends when we would go wine tasting in Napa who would buy $300 of wine futures.

Typical market with spices in downtown Tequila.

Overall, Guadalajara is extremely nice, and it is shocking that I am the first Fulbright to have traveled there this year.