My Mexican Austria

Lunes 30/09/2013
Casa de los 12, Zapopan, Jalisco

Hello my dear readers!
We have already reached the last day of September and hence, the second month of my Mexican Experience is coming to an end. And finally I can say that it is warmer in Mexico than in Austria. After two weeks of heavy rains, because of the hurricane on the Pacific Coast, I have hope that it is going to improve now. Currently, I have a feeling that my memory is getting worse and worse, as it is already hard to remember what I did two weeks ago;-)...but actually I just want to tell you about my last weekend - the last one of September.

It was a kind of special weekend as we had a guest here in Guadalajara - Alex, our friend studying in DF came to visit our beautiful City. This was again a good reason for us to invite all our friends to our house for a nice Welcome Party. (Luckily, there is always a reason for us to celebrate something on thursdays - so actually there has always been a Party on this day in our house up to now;-) )
After a short night, we all got up very early the next day (around 11) to go on a roadtrip to Tapalpa, a "Pueblo magico" located in the "Alps" of Jalisco. Thanks to David, we had one of the best drivers and a car big enough for 7 People. We managed to leave Guadalajara at around 1 with only 2 hours of delay. 

As the night was short and the last party long, we were all still quiet motivated and in a good mood for the upcoming Weekend.
Tapalpa is around 2 hours by car from Guadalajara and up in the mountains at 2,000 meters más o menos. Up there you are suddenly in a different world. It does not look like Mexico at all anymore. It looks more like Austria in the Alps with all the mountains, forests, lakes and cows. After visiting Tapalpa, which is a really small, but also really nice town, which reminded me of Switzerland, we went to our cottage in the woods, where we stayed for the night. The whole trip reminded me of the beginning of every horror movie, where some friends want to have a weekend in the woods in a cottage.....and in the end everyone is dying. Luckily, it was not like this. We had really a nice evening there, cooking Quesadillas de Pollo (Tacos mit Guacamole, Käse und Grillhähnchen), playing games and drinking some Tequila.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday was perfect. It was the first really warm and sunny day for a long time and we were in one of the best places you can imagine for such a nice day. Again, the night was very short, so we started again with a good Mexican breakfast – Quesadillas con Pollo;-). Afterwards we went to Atemajac, where we visited a First Communion at the church. Then again to Tapalpa and “las piedrotas”, which is some kind of Mexican Stonehenge. Some big rocks in the middle of nowhere and a nice place to climb and make pictures. In the center of Tapalpa we had our dinner and walked around the town square as it was sunnier and nicer than the day before. Afterwards, we wanted to visit “las cascadas de nogal”, but on the way there, we realized that our Chrysler was just not made for this road. We should have got donkeys before or some Quads, which are the preferred vehicles there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So - back to Guadalajara on Saturday evening.

But thats not enough. On Sunday I had to get up again very early, because I, Steffen, one of his friends from DF and Fred were going on a trip to Tonala - the eastern part of the Guadalajaran Metropolitan Area - to see more of this large, large City. The best Thing about it was, that we went with his 30-year old VW Bus, which was quiet an experience;-) "With this cars Germans invaded France!", siad Jose, because we had doubts that the car could make it to Tonala and back again. It was a really nice Sunday-trip with our friend José and his amazing stories about Mexican history and culture.

The market in Tonala is just huge, endlessly huge. We went almost 2 hours through the crowded market and afterwards I had the feeling that I have not seen half of it. A whole district of the city is one big market – it is just amzing.

On our way back home, we also visited the second-biggest building of Guadalajara, the flagship temple of the church “La Luz del Mundo” a Christian denomination, headquartered in Guadalajara with its own district – “Provincia Hermosa” – where the members of the church live.