How lovely to wake up NOT hot and sticky, for the first time in months! Today’s only planned activity: meet my high school friend for breakfast at 9:30. Since Lurko and I are early risers, that gave us plenty of time to take the dogs on a leisurely morning walk. I chose Parque Ávila Camacho because it was only an eight-minute drive and was on the Guadalajara dog-friendly list (BringFido.com). The dogs jumped excitedly into the car and we found the park easily enough. There was some construction, but we found some nice grassy spots around the Arena de Astros baseball field. After we wandered around for about 15 minutes, my friend Nyza texted that she had arrived at the restaurant. We figured we would quickly drop the dogs off at the apartment and meet her.
Well. That was a great idea, but the map app on my phone was not cooperating. We got all turned around and lost, and 30 minutes later found ourselves on Federalismo, heading out of town towards the mountains. Lurko stopped at the next OXXO he saw and told me to pay the Telcel bill so we could have data and a properly working map. Sure enough, 200 pesos later we had data and Google Maps was working again. We found our way to the house, dropped the dogs off, and made our way in the worsening traffic towards Plaza Patria.
An hour after leaving the dog park, we finally arrived at Cafe Chai. Apologies were quickly eclipsed by hugs and saludos, and the three of us slid into a booth. Nyza looked exactly the same as she did 20 years ago, just a little more gray in her hair. We spent the next couple hours chatting and catching up. Lurko ordered a plate of nachos and I ordered French toast with fruit – both very decadent, carb and sugar-filled choices for us. We had been transitioning off the keto diet, and we kept telling ourselves we were on vacation and shouldn’t feel guilty. (We still did, a little.) But the food was great and so was the chai latte I ordered.
During breakfast Nyza told us that tomorrow will be a major celebration in Guadalajara. Most Mexicans know about the Virgin of Guadalupe, whose shrine is near Mexico City. Well Jalisco has its own Virgin– the Virgin of Zapopan. Every year the icon goes on tour and visits the small towns around Jalisco. This weekend, she comes home to the Basilica de Nuestra Señora de Zapopan, a Baroque style church built in 1866. There will be a procession starting at 6:30am from the Guadalajara Cathedral (the big cathedral downtown, built in 1618), and the parade will be going down Avenida Americas right by our apartment, on the way to the Basilica. Streets will be closed and they’re expecting 3 million participants. Soooo the main takeaway from that is we should do our downtown sightseeing today instead of tomorrow. Tomorrow we might not be able to leave the apartment!
We said our goodbyes to Nyza, took some pictures outside Plaza Patria, and then headed home to check on the dogs. After letting them out to pee and getting our bearings, we decided to drive to the Centro to visit the coin collectors, then walk to Plaza de las Armas and see the Governor’s Palace and the Cathedral and the Degollado Theater. This is all the famous touristy stuff you see when you go to Guadalajara, but I hadn’t seen it for at least 20 years, and Lurko had never been there. It seemed like we could get all that knocked out in one afternoon.
The Centro was about a 30 minute drive from the apartment. Google Maps took us down a bunch of side streets, presumably because traffic was that bad (but when is it not bad here??). We found a parking garage, and went to look for the coin place. My dad had given me 4 Mexican coins that were collector’s items, and he asked me to see how much I could get for them. As it turned out, it was very easy to find the coin place, because true to Mexican shop planning, we ended up on the block that was nothing but coin places. Every shop on the block bought and sold coins or gold and silver. There were also money exchanges. The peso was worth 19.3 that day….still resisting going all the way to 20 despite the gloom and doom over our new presidenta’s policies. We waved at a shopkeeper behind a bank teller’s window and showed him our coins. He examined them and said he would give us $3600 pesos for all 4, so about $182 U.S. I texted Dad the offer and he said to sell the coins, so we did. With that errand finished, we walked a few blocks over towards Plaza de Armas.
What I really wanted to show Lurko was my favorite mural by my favorite Mexican artist, Jose Clemente Orozco. Inside the heavily guarded Governor’s Palace (which is basically the Jalisco state capitol where their Congresso meets) is a courtyard. On the right side of the courtyard is a staircase. You ascend the stairs, and look up. The first time I saw the mural, I was 17 and it left quite an impression on me. I knew who Father Hidalgo was – the “liberator” of Mexico who roused the people to fight for their independence. The mural depicted Hidalgo, but in a very dramatic fire-and-brimstone-y way. I love it and photos just don’t convey the experience. So we paid our respects to Hidalgo/ Orozco, and looked around the rest of the building.
Then we went back out towards the plaza, snapped some more pictures, bought an agua de piña (pineapple water), and decided to call it a day. We returned home, walked the dogs, and settled in for the night to watch movies. Tomorrow we will go check out the parade when it passes by our apartment.
