Mesoamerica 2019 - Day One, Arriving in Guadalajara

Only five days into 2019 and the intrepid travel blogging team of de-I and Wife are back on the road! 2019 is going to have a bunch of different versions of our travel patterns. There are different ways we want to do things. There are some things we want to try that we've not done, etc. We're starting off with a trip to Mexico and Cuba.

This trip represents a number of changes plus things we've wanted to do. First it is only 17 days. But de_I/Wife standards that is like a long weekend. Second, we've not gotten around to going to Mexico even though it is right next door. Stupid. If you are into the travel thing, why not go someplace easy to get to and not that expensive? Thirdly we wanted to add something during the winter where we went someplace warmer.

This trip will consist of three places. We are starting in the second city of Mexico, Guadalajara. This was where Wife had her first job out of college teaching first grade a school for missionaries. Then we are going to Cuba where we have private car/driver tour for 6 days. Finally we go back to Mexico for four days in Mexico City.

Getting to Guadalajara today was really very smooth. We prearranged and Uber pick-up that was right on time. From the moment the Uber picked us up until we were eating our breakfast burritos at the airport was a total of 35 minutes. That's going to the airport, checking our luggage, getting through security and buying breakfast. Amazing. Then the flights were on-time and even with a close connection we were not in any trouble. We were upgraded on the flight from Houston to Guadalajara. We had gotten our immigration forms online and our bags came off first from the plane so we whizzed through customs as well. A $20 cab ride and we were at the hotel and in our room by 3:35 in the afternoon.

We are staying in the Centro Historico and decided to find the Tourist Office to get some maps and stuff. It was supposed to be a mile away. We were immediately immersed into walking in this city. Of course it is Saturday and there are lots of people about shopping and just being out. Did I mention to say it was around 80 degrees here? We were in shirt sleeves after the winter weather we've had in Albuquerque. We spent a lot of time but never could find the tourist office. This is not a city that seems to be focused on tourism.

So we headed back toward the hotel and started to wander

This whole downtown area was just packed with people for street after street

Kind of reminded me of Japan in a way

 

Each country/culture has its own way of navigation

Here in Guadalajara it seems no one is particularly wedded to walking on one side of the sidewalk or the other. Crossing streets, people would wait for the light or until the street was free of traffic. Walking through the crowds was like crossing a Vietnamese street..you needed a bit of zen/just go with the flow mentality.

We were tired and realized we were hungry

We saw what looked like Donner Kebab but was in fact Tacos al Pastor

A little bit of non-language fumbling around but we managed to order a couple of tacos and a quesadilla. My picture did not turn out.

Fortified we went back out and now were in the mood to get into photos

There were so many food vendors out and their displays were so colorful

They cut corn off the cob here and give you a ton of toppings to eat with it

I have no idea what these snack foods are or why they have sauces put on top

But they had at least one happy customer

We hadn't done any prep work before we left the hotel but by luck we ran into the cathedral, a major site in town

At the sewing supply store

We passed the wedding shop district

There is much wall art which we will search out more of in the future

At our hotel

We ended up getting Torta's a type of sandwich for dinner. 

It has been a busy day