April 7-10: Onward to the Coast

April 7&8:  As we started to drive towards the coast, we needed to bypass a place called Leon to get to our next destination west of Guadalajara.  Leon is an industrial city and is mentioned to be very polluted.  We noticed the pollution as soon as we drove into the city.  You could see the smog sitting lingering for miles.  Leon is also known for it’s production of leather and it’s massive public market filled with a sea of shoe stores.  How could one resist!  We paid a security guy at Costco to watch our truck and trailer and took a cab to the market.  It was 2 streets wide and 5 blocks long!

In addition to shoe stores there was also some stores selling bags and jackets.  We spent 2 hours there and only covered a quarter of the entire market.  We bought shoes for the family and leather jackets for Trevor and I.  The prices were so good I’m sure I’ll be kicking myself that we didn’t buy more the next time we need to buy shoes in Canada!

From there we were headed to an RV Park west of Guadalajara but we got lost trying to get around this large city.  There was a combination of poor signage, trees covering the signage, our lack of familiarity with the names of towns and Spanish directions all contributed to this problem.  It was getting late so we stopped at an RV park on the edge of the city before dusk.  It was a friendly park and some of the permanent guests almost had us convinced to see the sites of Guadalajara.  We gave it some thought, but it would be a long bus and/or subway ride into downtown (1.5hrs).  As many of you know, we’re not that fond of big cities so we headed west the following day to a RV park in a country setting west of Guadalajara. 

 April 9-11: We were happy to arrive at this peaceful ranch owned by a friendly English speaking family.  While there, we rested, swam at the public pool next door, got through some school work, went to an archaeological site  and visited the town of Tequila, famous for ….you guessed it! 

We stopped at the first distillery we saw, apparently there are about 24 more.  This one happened to be one of the bigger ones, Sauza.  It was an enjoyable personal tour in the fields and production plant  which finished off with tequila tasting.  As some of you know, “me gusta la tequila” and I admit I had a little too much! Trevor  was driving so he refrained from too much sampling, although our guide  assured us that it was no problem in Mexico!  Scary!