First there is the food, fresh and plentiful. The breakfast buffet at my hotel included eggs, beans, potatoes, 2 days roasted, one day mashed, one morning fashioned into pancakes as delicate as butterfly wings and mounds of fresh fruit, including papaya, a rare treat. A salad in a restaurant I revisited from a previous trip served me a deep bowl of crisp greens heaped with chicken, there was the side salad one evening of shredded lettuce and seemingly impossibly sweet onions topped with a tangy vinaigrette. Vegetable medleys tasted as if the zucchini, carrots, broccoli and green beans had been plucked from a garden just minutes before being steamed to perfection. There was a breakfast so bountiful, served on the wrap around porch of a historic mansion, that I was unable to finish it, unheard of for me. There were the lovely lunches and breakfasts taken in the lush garden of the hotel in Ajijic , with it's lake view, where a caged scarlet macaw shouts out it's name "Paco" as a calico cat with beautiful markings wanders about the greenery and lounges in the sun.
There is the architecture, late 19th century facades line the streets of downtown Guadalajara. In the historic Colonia Americana district the mansions display an eclectic mix of colonial, Victorian and baroque influences, sometimes all three in a single building. There are the churches, some centuries old, sprinkled around the city like jewels, waiting to be discovered by chance as you walk the streets. Murals in bright colors fill the walls of the buildings of Ajijic, the ancient stone pyramids of Teuchitlan hold secrets thousands of years old.
And then the people, charming and graceful. The guide to the pyramids and I had a long conversation about tequila as we returned to the city. The patrons at the bar in Ajijic ensured I felt welcome among them. The two students manning the front desk at the Museo de las Artes, sweet, intelligent, slightly flirtatious, with an underlying innocence unique to the young. The, without exception, courteous and smiling wait staff and UBER and taxi drivers. The tiny boy zig zagging across a square playing with a bubble machine I encountered as I returned to my hotel after dinner on my final night in Guadalajara.
It is a place of history, charm and beauty, waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.
