Guadalajara Touring and Catch Up on Blog

Sorry got behind again.
The last I wrote we had a free day and we did have our rig washed but Dave got the price down to $60.00, and they got a lot of the scratches off. The guy that came in and did Charlie's rig did an excellent job; he even matched the paint to a “T”. As a matter of fact, other people in our group that have any kind of damaged spots on their rigs are having him fix them up too. We walked to Wal-Mart with Glenn and Helena spent way too much money and just kind of kicked around all day.
On Thursday, we had our Guadalajara City Tour which turned out to be another bust. Jessie never found us a guide, as we were driving into town he tried to answer the questions we had but he wasn’t a tour guide. Hell we could have taken a regular bus into town instead of the company paying for a tour bus that didn’t tour us. We told Jessie to just drop us off and we would go to the Mercado (shopping) by ourselves. When we were close to town the streets were blocked off and there were police everywhere, the bus dropped us off and we watched the demonstration that was going on. The school age students were protesting because of the school conditions, overcrowded rooms, not enough school supplies, and the teacher’s low pay. The police had their armor out, as if the students were going to start shooting, very interesting to see. We walked over and viewed another Cathedral then Jessie arranged for us to see the Government Building, it was closed because of the protest. The Government Building was a bust; they wanted money to have a tour so we all said forget it we are going to the Mercado. We walked 5 blocks to the Mercado and then some of us stopped and had lunch, others started shopping. At 3pm the bus would pick us up and take us back to the RV Park. Dave and I got a leather jacket for me; we got a Mexican Blanket, really nice, for the baby’s room to hang on the wall and also a sombrero to hang on the wall with the blanket.
Friday, was the Tequila Factory Tour, yea, it wasn’t a bust. At first we thought it might be but in the end it turned out really good. We were suppose to have a tour of a tequila ranch, but all we saw was a video, no tour or tour guide to help us. The tour bus then took us to the Tequila Factory, which there was a guide there, Luis, who was very informative. Just around the plant, which by the way is in the town of Tequila, there are over 40 million agave plants, plus the agave is everywhere growing, pretty neat to see. Luis told us the process of making the tequila, there is 2 kinds, 100% agave tequila and then there is just tequila, which is 51% agave and 49% corn alcohol, then of course there is the ageing of it. In the Sauza Tequila Factory alone they make 90 thousand bottles an hour, 30% stays in Mexico, 40% is shipped to the United States and the other 30% is exported. Forgot to mention the Sauza Tequila Factory is now owned by the Jim Beam Corporation. The only tequila that is still family owned is Jose Cuervo . During the tour they had 3 bottles out that you could smell and taste, so the group was passing around these bottles taking sips from them, I didn’t get to taste them but Barbara took a big gulp and her eyes started watering. On another part of the tour, Luis took us to where the barrels were of the ageing tequilas and he passed around a sample of it, that one I got to taste, and it was pretty good. After the tour we walked thru their garden area and went to the bar and had a free sample with lime juice, then of course went to the store they had there to purchase any tequila if you wanted any. We purchased one of the 100% Agave one’s and stashed it under our bed to bring back for trying later.