September 25th Guadalajara

Felt like a tourist today, Tas and I took a UBER taxi into the centre of the city (first time experience for me). It was less than £2 and it arrived within 2 minutes, the second Uber we used to the Expo EVEN OFFERED US A BOTTLED WATER AND A LOLLIPOP. - we firstly headed for the Cathedral as we reasoned this is usually where the action and historic buildings are to be found. The City was buzzing with people and a real weekend feel. The Cathedral appeared to have a service going on, though tourist were still walking around with their smartphones. Here are a few of my piccys. The Cathedral was built in the late 1500's.

Tas

Me

Before visiting the Cathedral we'd stopped at a Chinese 'All you can eat Buffet', which for two of us was £7 with a beer thrown in! Food was good too. Tas wouldn't admit it but I suspect he was nursing a hangover - he'd gotten back to his room at 5am that morning - so he was pretty brave to escort his dear old uncle into the city. Because he was so good I bought him an ice cream, before walking to the University quarter.

Guadalajara is an old city though the University is somewhat newer, 1795. The locals wanted a University but the Jesuits who had the monopoly with two Colleges resisted and it was only when they were expelled from the City, with the installation of a new Bishop that the University became possible. The Bishop petitioned the King of Spain for approval and he agreed and so the University was founded with it being called the Royal University of Guadalajara. The royal bit was dropped in the 1920's - surprised this lasted so long as Mexico broke away from Spain in 1812.

Cow climbing up the Wall outside the University (bloody students)

View of the original Uni Building with Boris Bikes in foreground (That man gets everywhere)

The University apparently has 250,000 students this includes Secondary schools and subsidiary institutions.

We looked around this beautiful church where real worship was taking place, but I had to take a picture of this beautiful building adorned with flowers.

We walked back to our Hotel via the Expo Centre where Tas registered for another conference he is attending this week. This is an international conference on Aeronautics and was quite interesting looking at the exhibitors there.

They land Helicopters anywhere in this country - I'm sure Ive seen this one before!!!! 

Walking out of the Expo Centre I recognised the bar opposite where I had eaten on Friday night and opposite that was the hotel I'd stayed in. It turned out that the hotel we are currently in,  is literally 5-10 minutes walk away from where I was staying. So Tinkerbell really is mischievous, my two hour tour of Guad on Saturday was totally unnecessary. The hotel also backed onto the Expo Centre (didn't know this at the time) but this would account for the helicopter landing outside my window the previous night !!You've got to laugh haven't you.

It's been good meeting Tas and his friend Andreus (not sure how you spell it, but pronounced An - dray - Us - he's Danish). Good being able to talk, without it being an effort and about where you from and where you going etc. Tomorrow is back to the grindstone, a very long ride of 350 miles to the other side of Mexico City where I shall see the ancient Aztec City of Teotihuacan. After that 3 days to the Belize border - I'm going there as I want to make my crossing through Guatemala as short as possible. My hope is that i get into Belize without too much hassle from the border police, as I don't have the correct paperwork. But that is 4 days away so still lots of other things to worry about - like getting out of this enormous city of 5 million people on a Monday morning in the rush hour!!

Footnote

In desperation on Saturday I briefly turned on my mobile data to get a Googlemap - it was for the briefest of times - it cost me £14. So today I bought a Mexican all you can eat Sim for around £5. What this does mean is that you cannot txt me on my usual number for now. Either use messenger or email

Hope you have all had a nice weekend, I'm off to the pub with Tas and Andreus