Guadalajara

Last Tuesday we took a guided tour of the Centro Historico of Guadalajara while Kris and Ed were here. Actually, the guide drove us around a few neighborhoods where famous (and infamous) people had lived first. Guadalajara is the second largest city in Mexico so it's quite cosmopolitan but also very old. The earliest churches date to the early 1500s. I guess the conquistadores had barely conquisted before the priests were right behind them converting the Indians. Anyway, we saw some lovely buildings and very stirring murals by Orozco, Mexico's second most famous muralist (Diego Rivera being the first). We also strolled through la Labertad, the largest market in the Americas. Fortunately, we'll have lots more opportunities to explore Guad (as it's called here) since it's only about an hour away. Another day we visited a town on the edge of Guad, called Tlaquepaque, which has 20-something streets of Mexican art, crafts, furniture, textiles, etc--very overwhelming. We only managed to get through about 4 square blocks, barely touching the surface. For more pictures of Guad centro, click here.