From Tlaquepaque to Guanajuato - Arts & Crafts and centers of culture
Posted by Zihrena

Wednesday, August 16, 2000
Tlaquepaque to Guanajuato
(continued from the Colima City to Guadalajara entry)

Leaving our Guadalajara hotel on Wednesday morning, there were hardly any signs left of last nights' floods except a few puddles and a bit of heavy machinery cleaning dirt deposits off a few of the streets. In order to avoid getting lost again, we taxied over to El Parian in Tlaquepaque's town center and, it still being early with few shops open, we spent some time over a leisurely breakfast in a nearby courtyarded and typically decorated restaurant.

Tlaquepaque is an arts & crafts paradise, offering all kinds of ceramics and pottery, woven straw crafts, blown glass, metalwork and wooden furniture and statuary. It's narrow streets are host to outlets whose wares range from simple and inexpensive to very elaborate designer furniture and decorations.

In the Regional Ceramics Museum, we wandered through it's rooms displaying a variety of of regional pottery with accompanying explanations of the types of clay, techniques and peculiarities of each one. Although not large, the museum seemed to cover every variation possible of regional ceramics, from the most back baked clay to delicate high-temperature pieces.

Leaving Tlaquepaque at around 1 p.m., we exited the Guadalajara area via the same highway we entered (15D) until we reached the Highway 80 turnoff at Zapotlanejo. Taking a quick turn into town, it was immediately evident that this town was a textiles and clothing center, with store after store of low-cost garments for sale and signs proferring deals on denim straight from the factory.

We followed highway 80, which parallels super highway 80D, passing cornfields and cattle in the wide valleys between the still rolling hills, and profusions of flowers including azaleas, bougainvillea and even roses. The area had numerous large and prosperous-looking chicken farms -- one was called "La Ciudad del Huevo", or "Egg City"! Just past Tepatitlan de Morelos, we decided to return to super highway 80D as the surrounding scenery was no different on the secondary highway and we would be able to make better time on our way to the city of Guanajuato.

At Lagos de Moreno we moved onto Highway 45, which took us around the shoe-center city of Leon, Guanajuato. On the roadside were a number of stands selling honey, royal jelly, pollen, regional candies and, beside one stand, a line of fighting cocks arranged in their cages for display. I guess that's only reasonable with all the chicken farms in the area...

From before Leon through the turnoff onto the Guanajuato highway at Silao, we came regularly upon large, colorful trucks decorated with signs and banners and crepe paper streamers, usually with women and children lounging in the back on chairs or mattresses that made the trucks look more like gypsy homesteads than regular transports. Some of the trucks had banners proclaiming that it was some kind of cyclists pilgrimage.

At Silao we turned off toward Guanajuato, a colonial mining city neither of us had ever been to. We climbed from those rolling valleys into pine forests again, and by late afternoon came into the city. We were immediately taken by it's winding streets, wonderful traffic tunnels and architecture of which we'd heard so much.

We found a great little hotel, La Abadia, in the San Javier area of Guanajuato and, after settling into our room, taxied down through the tunnels into the center of town, where in the cool of the evening (and it really does cool down here after the sun is gone!) we had dinner under the laurels in the square in front of the Juarez Theater. Groups of mariachis were out offering music to the diners in all of the restaurants around the square. The theater steps and entrance were lined with young students of the arts enjoying the early evening after their classes. After dinner we wandered for a short while more before getting to the point when we felt like our coastal warm-weather blood was about to freeze in the chill, forcing us to retire to the warmth of our bed.

Tomorrow we'll be driving around Guanajuato, visiting a couple of museums and carrying on to Dolores Hidalgo and San Luis Potosi and our last run for the border...