The Most Expensive Airport Shuttle Ever…in Mexico

The trip to and through the Guadalajara airport was uneventful, other than having a 3 hour layover in Mexico City.  At about 10:30pm, in the dark, but with GPS in hand, off we headed toward downtown Guadalajara driving our newly acquired little Nissan.  Well, if you think the roads are mixed up here in Cabo, Guadalajara will really be an experience for you. Between cobblestone streets everywhere, and zillions of cars, it makes for quite a challenge.  The rental cost was reasonable, a couple hundred dollars for the week, so away we went.  20 minutes later, we arrived in the heart of town.

 

Hotel Morales is over 200 years old, and really an amazing place.  Tired as we were, we had a shot of tequila, and off to bed we went.  The next day, we hung around the downtown area, took a horse drawn carriage to the jewelry area, walked to restaurants, and just plain had some local fun.  The next day, after talking to some of the hotel staff, we figured out that going anywhere, little towns nearby, restaurants, or other sites to see, it was best done by taxi.  Aside from the taxis being so cheap, especially by Cabo’s standards, there was little or no parking anywhere. On the second morning, we called Dollar Rent a Car to find out how to return the car, and they did come out to get it…Well, the final cost, for only using the car to get to the hotel, and then having it picked up was almost $200, making it a record, I am sure, for a “do it yourself” PITA airport shuttle, ugh!  Evidently, the daily rate for a rent-a-car is clearly higher than the discounted ‘weekly’ rate.

On a brighter note, our friends Diana and Esteban, gave us the recommendation for Hotel Morales, which turned out to be a fine place. Although the room we booked had a hot tub, their idea was more of a bathtub with some jets.  We upgraded, after the first night, to a room that did indeed, have what they called a Jacuzzi tub, but it was really a hot tub, able to have two of us in it at the same time, for some real fun, champagne and all…

That aside, we had a blast in Guadalajara. Not only from a shopping standpoint, which of course you probably know, most of the stuff here in Cabo is made there, and for sale at huge discounts.  The churches http://youtu.be/nlMdJufJD_k, governmental buildings, and museums are absolutely amazing, many of which date back to the 1600 and 1700s.  The people, did I mention the people…are very friendly, even though English is pretty much on a back burner for the most part…but it didn’t matter.  We got by just fine, because the people were friendly, and worked extra to be accommodating.  The workers at the hotel, on the other hand, all spoke English, so we always got info on where we were going in the morning, before we headed out.

That being said, we did go out one afternoon, for a walk to the jewelry area, again, but I saw a city bus that said “Centro” on the front of it.  The bus doors were just about to close, so I quickly grabbed Kathy and said, “Hurry, let’s go, we can get take the bus to shopping.  She jumped on, and the bus went straight, rather than turning right toward El Centro.  Forty five minutes later, after each and every person had gotten off the bus, we were really starting to wonder where the hell this contraption was going.  I finally got up, asked the bus driver where we were headed, and surprise, he didn’t speak any English.  “Al Centro in Guadalajara” I asked, and he nodded, and then took a turn up a very rough dirt road, parked the bus and left. We were in another town.  There we were for about 15 minutes, on an empty bus, pondering our fate. http://youtu.be/5yfb1TufEHo Well, he did return, and ultimately, we did make it back to our hotel.  I figured it this way…For less than a buck, the two of us had an ‘E’ ride (for those of you that remember Disneyland years ago) and Kathy didn’t get a chance to spend any money shopping, her favorite passion.  It was a win win, except that she was really pissed for my acting in haste…but I enjoyed it!

The first town we visited was Tlaquepaque.  We got there via a double decker bus trip called Tapatio Tours and they were great. This turned out to be a great place to window shop.  Furniture, art, glass products from glasses to lamps, to you name it, it was there.  The prices sure seamed more than reasonable to us.  That being said, our friend Marco, made it clear that we should look there, but buy in Tonala.  

Tonala was another amazing place.  Like Tlaquepaque, it too was about half an hour from Downtown, but this little town had so many stores, and places to eat, it was crazy.  You name it, if you had the time, you could find it.  Store after store, after store…everything from toys, to art, to wedding gowns, to decorations of every sort…impossible to describe.  On Thursdays and Sundays, they line the streets with temporary plastic tarps, like a huge flea market, and place lots of their goods out on the street…by the zillions…absolutely crazy.  Actually, we went on a Sunday, and it was too much for us, to be able to get a good grasp on what was actually there, and if you know Kathy, she is a professional shopper, and even she had trouble.  Also, there had to be at least 50 small temporary restaurants set up, so that families could go there to eat.  Again, no English spoken here, which just adds  to the exotic charm of this wonderful foreign land.  We did returned another day, to purchase an elaborate, hand carved dining table, with hand carved chairs to match.  It is currently being made, and then shipped here to Cabo.  An unbelievable piece of furniture, which will be a functional conversation piece, for what would be considered ‘pennies on the dollar’ in the States.

Next, going to the town of Tequila, where all that beautiful liquid gold is created, was quite an experience as well.  There were two tours available, one by train and one by bus.  The train only ran on the weekends, so we opted for the bus that ran everyday.  On the way, the guide described more of what we were seeing in Spanish, rather than in English until he came round to collect the balance of the tour cost.  Kathy told him that we didn’t want to pay the entire amount…we wanted to pay half, because he was speaking twice as much Spanish as English.  Once we told him that we were writing an article about the tour on CaboRicardo.com, all of a sudden, voila, English prevailed.  We did pay in full!

Before getting to the town of Tequila, we stopped at a distillery called Tres Mujeres or Three Women.  This was an interesting place, where a jimador first gave a demonstration on how         a the agave plants are trimmed, cut and pulled from the ground, heated/steamed for a couple of days to soften the ‘pinapple’ and then squeezed to get the fluid out.  Then off to huge stainless steel vats for about 5 days of natural fermentation, and then transferred to bottles as blanco or silver tequila, or moved to wood barrels to be aged to perfection.  We were able to walk down into a dark, underground room, where a hundred barrels or more were just sitting, and waiting for that celebratory time when their tequila can be bottled as Anejo, the best of the best.  Ultimately, everyone was able to sit down and sample the different tequilas, and this was all included in the price of the tour.

The actual town of Tequila, about 20 miles further away, is a place where Jose Cuervo and Sauza Tequila have developed kind of a park like atmosphere based on tequila (duh) with lots of stores selling all kinds of paraphernalia related to my personal drink of choice.  If you have ever thought about aging your own tequila, this is the place to buy small barrels, because they are so cheap, much less than what we paid in the states to develop our own stash.

The final stop on the tour was a place for lunch, also in the town of Tequila.  Lunch was not included, but a necessary pause, and a great place to order more drinks from a very elaborate list of tequilas…and at reasonable prices…This tour was truly, an outstanding and educational experience.  After all, where else can you get a little culture and drink tequila at the same time.

Guadalajara was surprisingly inexpensive.  A very nice quality hotel room, in downtown ran us a bit over a hundred dollars nightly.  A cab to Tonala or Tlaquepaque, both about a 25 minute ride, was 90 pesos, about $7 USD, and restaurants had to be every bit of 20% less than here in Cabo…not as touristy, every bit as friendly, and so many restaurants and varieties of places to eat that it’s simply amazing.

  

Did we enjoy our trip…Put it this way, we’re planning on going back every year.  If you shop for airfare, you can sometimes find it from Cabo to Guadalajara for under a hundred dollars each way, but you have to look.  Also, the town of Tequila has a tequila tasting competition that last 2 weeks, every November…now that does sound pretty damn good, for those of you that are as spiritual as me, no?