Day 188

Guadalajara, Mexico

I woke with a jerk this morning. Or should I say this afternoon.

I’ve been in Guadalaraja for over a week, just wandering around in the day,  eating at a nice cheap veggie place I found, sitting in the plazas reading and learning Spanish, playing my guitar, but sleeping later and later. I set my alarm and just ignore it. Its a hard habit to break.  I was going to leave today but yesterday, when I eventually got up at 2 PM, found all the car parts places were shut due to ‘Semana Santa’ or Easter as its known here. I can’t go driving without mirrors so I was stuck. But I’ve been paying for my room and playing it by ear, they asked how long I wanted to stay at the start and I said ‘Quién sabe’  or ‘Who knows’… They don’t speak English here though, but I know enough Spanish now to let them know when the light stopped working or that I didn’t need the woman cleaning my room every single day. I’d just prefer it if they bought a toilet seat and killed the mini cockroaches in the bathroom. :p

But the owner was hammering on the door just before noon and just before my alarm sounded. He had shown me sign yesterday that said checkout was at noon, which I knew, but I wasn’t checking out… I was reading in my guidebook that you should book ahead for Easter in some places but I didn’t think much of it, apart from when I got woken up and then he wouldn’t take my money for another night. Great. I understood enough to work out the room was already booked, probably for the weekend. What was I going to do now? Well, there is always the beach… only 5 hours drive away.

Guadalaraja is nice, lots of old buildings and ambience. Its been getting busier in the run up to Easter though. Yesterday the center was pedestrianised and it was bedlam, people everywhere and impossible to walk around. I had set off towards the west side with a map in my head and an address, always the best way to find somewhere. I wanted a cable to connect my flash to my camera, since I lost my wireless receiver on day 5 of my trip. They didn’t have any, but I still had to go off to see some upstairs who spoke English so the assistant could ask ‘why? It connects on the pins’. The assistant only works in a camera shop, its not enough for him to understand that Canon sell them, I want one, ‘why’ doesn’t come into it. I guess I should have told him to go to www.thestrobist.com but its all in English.

I started packing my stuff, took down  my mosquito net, which is now saving me from daily ravishments by the local insect population (I put it up when I woke to find my forehead bitten a dozen times…. I must buy some anti-malarials soon too….) and got my shit together. I went down to talk to the owners wife, she was either afraid or liked her distance as she kept backing away from me :p She explained I could move into the little room on the rooftop. Fine with me. I finished packing my stuff and then she comes to tell me I don’t need to move after all. Kind of even better, despite the fact that I’m ready to go.

At least I saw a Easter miracle today. I rose from the dead in the morning :)



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