Guadalajara, Guadalajara!

~10 hours South, past the Tropic of Cancer, across more desert, Chuy and I reached the 2nd largest city in Mexico, Guadalajara, the "Silicon Valley of Mexico." Perhaps it's the professions of those there as compared to the industrial Monterrey, but the drivers were somewhat nicer. The learned skill of driving in Monterrey (more on this some other time) seemed to irk many of Guadalajara's inhabitants, but it proved just as effective there.

The next day, the gringos arrived at the airport. We drove way out of our way on our journey to Tecolotlan, but I at least got to eat some tequila ice cream. When we reached Tecolotlan, we were greeted at the town hall by the mayor and the director of the park service. The gringos went to bed, while the Mexicans and I stayed up as you do. We happened to run into the mayor, who proudly proceeded to tell us of the wonders of the dark side of his town. Truly a once in a lifetime experience to have a beer with a mayor while he explicates about everything that would be illegal in the States and then have him pick up the tab. They really threw out the red carpet for us...




Over the next four days, I descended four canyons, with drops up to 100m with some friends in the ACA.







Some gorgeous waterfalls, alot of poison ivy and jejen (biting ferocious nasty little chingaros), and not nearly enough sleep is the general gist.




But the park service shuttled us to the entrance and picked us up at the exits of the canyons everyday (Try to get that to happen in the States. The park rangers said this was completely normal.) The birthplace of mariachi is right around the corner from Tecolotlan, so the second to last night there was the expected party, with a true mariachi band to boot.






By the way, due to my constant consumption of salsas and a couple of other factors, my status has now been elevated to Mexi-gringo.






After some wonderfully, elegantly complicated logistical problems, the gringos got on their planes safely. A few remained, rented a car, and followed Chuy and me in my truck to Tequila, the birthplace, of, well...