We spent a lot of time in the car today. We pulled out of El Encanto just after breakfast. Christian and Natasha will be staying for a few more days, but the rest of us will spend a night or two in Guadalajara before flying home. We packed the car and we all hugged Jim, thanked him, and said goodbye.
And then we drove. And drove. There were many times I wanted to utter that plaintive cry of every child, “Are we there yet?” But somehow it seemed like every time we checked our progress on Google Maps we still had an hour and a half left to go! Mike drove the whole way, but he seems to like to do that. We finally made it through some dense traffic in the city and dropped the car off at Hidalgo Airport in Guadalajara. And we took a cab from there to our hotel.
We are staying at the Petit Hotel Casa Pedro Loza. Our friend Bob Clarke recommended it. It is a beautiful boutique hotel in an old colonial building not far from the plaza and the cathedral. The rooms are quite elegant: we are definitely having a more formal experience here than El Encanto! But like a stage set, the room looks better from a distance.
It also has a rooftop bar with an astonishing panoramic view of the city.
We all took a quick nap after our long drive and then we went in search of our friend Bob. He is difficult to reach by telephone and he has several properties in the area. We stopped by one which he now rents out to female art students from one of Guadalajara’s many post-secondary institutions. A older woman stopped by to check out what we were doing, and her suspicions were allayed when she remembered John from his last visit. She is one of those people one finds in a number of Spanish-speaking countries who keeps the street clean, watches over everybody’s property, and seems to have keys to every house. She walked us over Bob’s house. We sat around the pool there for a few minutes until Bob arrived. He’s the one in the center in the picture below.
Bob was perhaps the Bay Area’s foremost garden designer before he retired a decade ago. But you can see his skill in the wonderful designs he makes for his own home.
In the evening, we went out to eat with Bob and Luis. This was not an easy thing to do. Today is Good Friday and in honor of this solemn day most of the shops and restaurants in the city are closed. Bob likes to remind us that Guadalajara is perhaps the most Catholic of all Mexican cities … and the one with the most gay bars, too. We found an Italian place. Ellen discovered that Italian food in Mexico involves some hot peppers. She ate one, thinking it was a sweet peperoncino. It was something much hotter and she nearly went flying up through the ceiling!
After dinner, Luis dropped us off by the cathedral we walked around the plaza. We met up with Yvonne and Lori. We had some coffee in a little cafe in the Teatro Degadillo, Guadalajara’s opera house. And then we found our way back to the hotel and went to bed. Before doing so, we said goodbye to Ellen and Mike who will be leaving early tomorrow morning.
