CHAPTER 21A. MEXICO-GUADALAJARA, CONT.

A trip to Tlaquepaque is a pleasant excursion; it is in the metropolitan area and accessible by public busses. There are many upscale shops in old mansions where one finds all sorts of Mexican treasures including antiques, fine leather goods, furniture, handicrafts, clothing, glassware, and pottery. We see a beautiful iron and glass coffee table and wish we had driven a truck down instead of traveling by air. On different trips we bring back a small leaded glass display case, a leaded glass lampshade, glassware, and pottery carefully packed in our luggage or held in our laps. There is a shop where you can watch glass blowing; we buy short heavy walled glasses with side indentations that we use for margaritas. In Ken Edwards’ pottery shop we watch beautiful designs being hand painted on wares and buy various pieces, one of which is a coffee cup Glenn still uses. Ken’s shop is next door to the No Name R. which uses his pottery that can be seen on the tables in the photos. A margarita especial and a meal at the No Name are always part of the Tlaquepaque excursions.

Another excursion in the metropolitan area, also by bus, is to Zapopan to see the huge Franciscan Basilica. There is a shop where Huichol Indian art is sold; they make colorful and intricate pictures with string glued to a surface. When the Pope visited in ‘79 we watched on TV his procession start at Zapopan and then joined the huge crowd waiting to see him pass. A Mexican family invited us to to stand in the back of their truck to see him.

At times we hear about interesting places to see that are accessible by bus; we saw a very deep canyon not far from town from a scenic lookout at the end of one bus line. It is said that this area was very long ago a big lake, and the emptying of the lake formed the canyon.

An excursion to Lake Chapala makes an interesting day; we have been there both by car and by tour bus. In times of drought the lake level is much lower, but it is a pretty lake and there are many North Americans living in the area. There are also a large number of expatriates living full time in Guadalajara; serving them are the English language Colony (now Guadalajara) Reporter weekly newspaper and the American Society that has many cultural and social events.

A trip downtown is fun, especially on Sunday when in the Plaza Liberacion Mexican families come from church with the children all dressed up. Places to see are the Cathedral, Government Palace, Degollado Theater, Plaza Tapatio, The Cabañas, and the Mercado Liberdad. Orosco’s murals are in many places, principally in the Government Palace and The Cabañas; also his home and workshop is near Los Arcos and is now a museum worth seeing.

The Degollado is a beautiful theater and presents an outstanding Ballet Folklorico by the Univ. of Guadalajara weekly. We attend it at least once each year. Also there we have seen the opera Carmen, and the show Chorus Line; both put on by Mexico City companies. The Swan Lake Ballet was staged in a park with the audience on one side of a lake and the actors (some on horseback) across the lake - magnificent! The American Society has a theater group that stages plays in smaller school or church theaters; many actors are retired New York professionals. One can’t get bored here!

When the Moscow Circus is in town a group from the Andrea stuffs into a taxi to go see it; the driver wants to see the circus too, so he is there to drive us home.

Bull fights are available, but are not our favorite entertainment so we go only once. The color and pageantry is fun to see, and the reaction of the crowd is interesting, but the bull doesn’t have a chance.

The Mercado Liberdad is interesting to visit; it is huge and has a wide variety of merchandise, including clothes, shoes, leather goods, jewelry, fruit, vegetables, meat, birds, flowers, etc. Just a half block up Av. Juarez is a small leather shop where we buy Mexican “bolsas de seguridad” which we use to carry valuables when traveling and also for gifts . They are very soft leather zippered flat pouches with a leather loop on the end that slips over a belt and the pouch is then suspended under the pants.

Another Sunday visit that is fun is to the large Park Agua Azul (blue water) where you see many children enjoying the train ride and other attractions. Gregg brings a supply of frisbees to Mexico, engages some young boys in a game, and then gives them the frisbee. When we take photos of people we try to get names and addresses and then mail prints to them. We find the Mexican people we meet to be very pleasant and friendly.

The very active American Society has much more than plays. Their headquarters has meeting rooms and a library with many paperback books to borrow; we attend their Thanksgiving dinner one year when we go before Christmas; they have meetings at some of the large hotels; they have tours in the vicinity, we take an enjoyable three night bus trip to Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende with them; we are interested in their tour to the Copper Canyon but it is always scheduled after we go home.

One nice thing about Guadalajara is that some family members come and take suites at the Andrea. Betty’s aunt Helen Teed came several years, Glenn’s mother Mary Burke came once, and in ‘88 Betty’s three cousins, Jane Prawit, Katie Michea, and Marriott Walker came for a reunion, the only time all four have been together. Marriott and his wife came for only a week and stayed at the nearby Fiesta Americana Hotel, but Jane and Katie were at the Andrea for a month.

Christmas decorations go up about Thanksgiving and aren’t taken down until after Epiphany; downtown is ablaze with decorations and it is worth an evening trolley ride to see them. The gardens in the residential area near the Andrea have beautiful poinsettias and other flowers, the streets have many trees, making it a pleasant area to walk in, but with the caveat in all of Mexico to always keep your eyes on the ground for unexpected holes or other trippers!

Guadalajara is a large city, over three million population in the 80’s, and growing fast, with a lot of industry. Traffic is often heavy, and it is dangerous to cross streets because it seems that drivers have no concern for pedestrians. More than once we hear tires screech and go out on our balcony and see someone laying hurt on the street. In ‘91 before we arrive our good friend Henry Fattel is seriously hurt when hit by a car; he is in the hospital for more than two months before he is well enough that his doctor son can fly home with him.

Betty has a dental emergency and sees a dentist who advertises in the Colony Reporter. His work seems satisfactory, and in those days we don’t have dental insurance at home. So we have some work, like crowns, root canals, etc. done there at lower cost.

Our balcony is a pleasant place to sit in the late afternoon and evening, enjoying a margarita along with jicama and Cheetos; watching the sun go down, often with brilliant sunsets, then seeing darkness fall over the city. There are many times when we see fireworks celebrating a birthday or other occasion; sometimes the fireworks are provided by lightning; once we see a lone cloud drift across the horizon intermittently lighted by internal flashes of lightning.
Guadalajara is a pleasant, inexpensive, and restful place for us in the winter for the thirteen years from ‘79 thru ‘91. As usual we leave a deposit at the Andrea when we leave in ‘91 for the next year, but when the time comes we have to cancel because Glenn is hospitalized with a leg blood clot. Our friends there get our deposit returned to us, but then we hear most of our friends are not returning and development in the area is threatening to change the way of life. So when Gregg & Mary Jane invite us to go with them to their time shares in Mazatlan in January of ‘92 we willingly accept.