Zapapon and Stolen Fruit

 

The church and square near my house

I live right in the centre of Guadalajara on a tiny, pretty street, but if you step around the corner, you'll bump straight into a pretty massive church on a buzzing square. Rosie is out this evening visiting her family, so I sat on this square this afternoon after a pretty busy day's explorations and had a grilled chicken salad for about two pounds fifty.*

[* I have just discovered that this keyboard has no pound sign. This could drive me slightly mad.]


On Friday afternoon, just after I'd arrived, Ariel took me on a little walking tour of the city. This helped me to get a feel of the place as well as relax a bit as I saw for myself how safe and laid-back the place is. Ariel assured me that although I do very much stick out like a sore thumb, it's perfectly ok for me to walk around by myself with my camera and not be hassled by anyone, as long as I kept some money in my shoes and my bra: "just in cases". Wise man indeed.

 

Central Guadalajara cathedral in the evening light

It was nice to get to know Ariel a bit, too- walking past the street-sellars he'd often stop and chat to them about what they were selling. A lot of people seemed to know him and would come over to hug him or shake hands, often shaking mine too as I was his associate. This makes Ariel sound like some kind of local celebrity, which is not exactly the impression I got, rather just that he has a lot of friends and cares about helping the local community. As we walked, he bought some crisps from one such street-seller, who smothered them in a hot sauce and lime juice for us to share. "It's important to support the locals," he told me, and in turn showed me which stalls were stocked with good quality Mexican goods, and which were Chinese imports.

I look forward to hearing Ariel's life story one day: on the drive back from the airport on Friday, we stopped at some traffic lights and some rather grubby looking travellers came over to the window asking for change. I was hardly shocked by this- in South Africa this kind of begging was to be expected, and most people were pretty hardened to it, ignoring the beggars and driving on- we did; it's understandable. But Ariel shook one guy's hand and gave hhim some change. Later he explained to me that they were travellers from further south- Honduras or Nicaragua, maybe, and were making their way via freight trains up to the USA border. "I like to support them, to try and keep them safe, because I did that trip once myself, at 18," he said. "America is shit and they might not be happy there at all, but they're chasing the American dream, so I can't tell them that."


After a day of exploring the local area yesterday, my plan for today was to get a bus somewhere slightly further afield. Emma and James were off to the coast for a few days, soset off pretty early, but as I set out past the square a couple of hours later, I bumped into them. The bus they were planning to catch hadn't turned up, perhaps because it was a Sunday, which didn't bode well for my plans either. They decided to get a taxi to Zapapon, a place where buses might be more plentiful, so I hopped i with them.



Child by Zapopan Basilica

Zapapon offered us yet another massive church, which at that moment was in the process of holding a service, but oddly enough was rather drowned out by the bells and chanting of a group of native tribespeople, positioned in front. I sat watching them for a while, mesmorized, wondering if it was some kind of anti-Catholocism protest.

 

A little while later, I wandered into a modern art museum, which turned out to be full of trippy, erotic cartoons: all lovingly drawn by one doped up "artist" who obviously didn't have a girlfriend. Walking through the totally empty gallery, along very high walls filled with hundreds of those cartoons, I could hear sporadic bells and chimes from the Indians outside, and pretty soon began to think that I too, was going mad. It was time to leave Zapopan.

A comedy-scene ensued, featuring me  attempting to haggle with taxi drivers,telling the front-most that his ego was "out of control"- because it was one of the few phrases I culd remember, and it was probably true. His friend then drove down the road to find me and drove me back for half the price.

The best part of my day had to be back in the centre, trying to buy a single orange from the market. The boy on the stall laughed at me when he realised that one was all I wanted, and picked out the "best", giving it to me for free. And it was probably one of the best oranges I've ever had.