Colima City to Guadalajara - Colonial cities and rainstorms
Posted by SurfMexico Editor

Tuesday, August 15, 2000 - Afternoon - On our way inland through Colima City and then to Guadalajara (continued from the Manzanillo, Pascuales and Ixtlahuacan article )

By mid-afternoon we were back on the Manzanillo-Colima highway, headed toward Colima City, which at that point was under 40 kms. away. Coming into Colima off the highway we were greeted by a large statue of the Rey Colimán (sometimes spelled Colliman) from whence Colima got its name.

Colima is a city of attractive colonial architecture, with neat, clean streets which, we noticed, even offered special parking spaces for the disabled right along the curb -- something we´ve not seen in Mexico before on public thoroughfares. In the downtown area we visited 3 town plazas and admired the Basilica Menor, massive stone government buildings and a stately hotel situated near the Basilica overlooking the main square. We took a tour through Colima's museum, and stopped in one of the sidewalk cafes for a cold beer and tasty Tostadas de Puerco (shredded, seasoned pork on a crisp tortilla and topped with lettuce, onions and cheese). Prices seemed very reasonable: Breakfasts for from about $.75 - 1.85 US; Main dishes from about $2.75 to $7.50 US.

Leaving Colima, we carried on along Highway 54 toward Guadalajara, hoping to catch a glimpse of the spuming Colima volcano. Unfortunately, with the low cloud cover that had been building up during the day, we could see nothing but the misty foothills as we passed. Close to the Colima/Jalisco state line, with the road lined at that point with cane fields and rolling hills, we stopped for a moment at a restaurant called El Mirador (the "lookout" or "viewpoint") - named such, we suppose, because when the weather permits, it affords a good view both of the volcano's cone to the north and the fields and valley extending off toward the south.

We decided to get off the well-beaten track again at Tuxpan, turning off the super highway and onto secondary Highway 110 leading to Jiquilpan de Juarez, Michoacan, planning to circle around Lake Chapala along its south-eastern side and thence to Guadalajara. With the recent rains, the gentle hills in the area were wonderfully green and lush. Again we went through fields of cane, as well as oranges and expanses of corn. There was even a little stand of bright, large-headed sunflowers near the side of the road close to Ejido de Contla, where we stopped to take a closer look at the ruins of an old sugar mill by the side of the road. The highway was in excellent shape, not terribly wide but well maintained and not too curvy.

Approaching the Michoacan border the vegetation changed. It was becoming drier and we saw the first real greyist-green magueyes along the roadside, and curled up into an area where pines began bto be in evidence. Near Jiquilpan, tall eucalyptus trees stood guard along the highway. Jiquilpan itself seemed a quite large, almost industrial city with lots of ceramic tile stands along the highway running through town.

Once we got through Jiquilpan, we headed to the Mexico-Guadalajara Highway (Route 15)... Just before reaching the highway at twilight, we hit heavy rain and a great show of lightning. We missed getting onto Route 15D (the toll highway) and ended up on Highway 15 instead, going in the right direction but in the midst of a lot of heavy truck traffic that we were hoping to avoid. We decided to turn back after a few miles and were able to connect with 15D and make a run for Guadalajara.

The rain continued to fall heavily as we entered Guadalajara shortly after 9 p.m. We planned not to go into downtown Guadalajara itself, but find lodging in the Tlaquepaque area, which we planned to visit the next morning. To us, Guadalajara is the prime place to get lost. Places never seem to be where they're supposed to be, the streets go off at strange angles and it doesn't take more than about 5 minutes to realize you don't know where you are, how you got there or where you're going. We were trying to avoid that -- we weren't successful. We headed to Tlaquepaque's town center (we think) in the dark and rain, and after several confusing blocks decided to backtrack toward the highway where we'd seen a couple of large motel complexes. We drove into the first one and immediately had misgivings. There was a guy at the car entrance who directed us straight to No. 66. We stared at the rows and rows of car garages, each screened by a curtain that didn't allow the other visitors to see what kind of car it was nor the entrance to the small room that each carport led to. It was what many call a "No-tell Mo-tel", and even though when we travel we don't usually stay in the upper-crust of hotel accommodations, preferring instead to overnight in reasonable but clean and decent spots, we were not about to stay in one of these! We rushed out the other side and carried down a few blocks, again heading into another place that, from the outside, looked like it could be normal lodging. Well, it wasn't. After a repeat performance, we were told that "family lodging" was available near the bus station just off the highway a few blocks away. Nevertheless, we then changed our travel plans completely (it was getting on 10 p.m. and we wanted to eat and sleep) and headed straight into the thick of Guadalajara's central district.

What timing we had! Little did we know it, but the rain was still falling and had been for quite a few hours, it seemed, before we arrived. Nearing the turnoffs into the town center, the traffic, even at that hour, was backed up and in many places stopped completely. We sat and crawled for about half an hour until we discovered that areas of the highway and downtown streets were flooded with up to a meter of water. It was like fording through rivers. By 11 p.m. we started to move out of the worst area of flood and were overjoyed when we saw, within a block from us, a Howard Johnson. It took us a few minutes more on the one-way, turning streets, to find out how to get there, but by then we were determined we weren't going a step further! And that's where we stayed.

Tomorrow we'll be carrying on to Guanajuato... after a good night's sleep!