Guadalajara: Mexico Without the Beach

For many Americans, a Mexican vacation is strictly a coastal experience filled with sun, sand, tequila and cerveza.

Think Cancun or Cozumel on the Gulf of Mexico and Mazatlan or Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific coast. If you’re old enough, conjure up those memories of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in “Night of the Iguana.”

Visitors who never leave the coast are missing the real Mexico. It’s a huge country, and the inland city of Guadalajara is an easy location for a full Mexican immersion.

Colonial history and the story of Mexico’s struggle for independence combine with world-famous murals to give Guadalajara, now Mexico’s second largest city, its vibe. Like Denver, it’s a highland city at an elevation of 5,000 above sea level, so you might find yourself catching your breath for that reason as well as the stunning architecture and art you encounter.

Murals by Jose Clemente Orozco, Guillermo Chavez Vega, Gabriel Flores, David Alfaro Siqueiros and others are the targets of many art tours. Magnificent tales are told on grand scales inside city hall, libraries, the judicial palace and the Cabanas Cultural Institute, a labyrinth that once was an orphanage and now is a treasure of a museum.

With more than four million residents in the city and surrounding metro area, this place bustles . . . and sprawls. Two formerly outlying villages—Tonala and Tlaquepaque—are known for their artists and craftsmen who produce everything from decorative metal sculptures to huge and whimsical papier mache animals.

Just outside the city on Lake Chapala are significant second-home and retirement communities populated by U.S. and Canadian citizens drawn to the region’s year-round mild climate.

Inside the city is a high-volume Corona brewery churning out Corona, Pacifico and Estrella for thirsty locals and tourists alike, and only about an hour’s drive away—past expansive fields of agave—is Tequila. This little town is Nirvana for imbibers of the beverage that bears its name. Jose Cuervo lives here, and throughout the region you can find 200 tequila makers, each a bit different from the last.

Complementing the art, architecture, beer and tequila is a Guadalajara-area location high on the list of rock-climbing enthusiasts. It’s a region of cliffs and boulders not 10 miles from the center of town called El Diente (the Tooth) because of the shape of one particularly popular formation. Eco-Tours Guadalajara will take you there and provide you with a zip-line, rappelling, rock-climbing and mountain biking experience to remember.

Even if you never venture inland from the coast to Guadalajara, it’s a virtual certainty you’ll encounter Guadalajara’s universally known export while in Mexico. Guadalajara, you see, is where mariachi music originated. Salud!

(For a serious research tool for planning a Guadalajara trip, find the Moon Handbook to the city by Society of American Travel Writers member and Mexico expert Bruce Whipperman.)

This Sport's Not For Me

It was at El Diente that I decided rock climbing is not my sport of choice.

My decision came about 40 feet up an almost-vertical rock wall in the craggy highlands just outside Guadalajara, Mexico. 

The location certainly was pretty—towering cliffs, giant boulders, blue sky, the outline of Guadalajara’s skyscrapers on the horizon about 10 miles away.

I even had a good instructor, Paco, who really was more of a coach-cheerleader-parent than instructor.  He continually shouted words of encouragement (“You can do it! I know you can!”) and assured me that the rope belay would return me to terra firma safely after I reached the goal.

The site was El Diente, an area of towering cliffs and huge boulders popular with folks who really enjoy trying to imitate Spiderman. 

El Diente (the Tooth) is named not for climbers’ teeth scattered on the ground but for a rock that actually does look like a tooth. Others in the vicinity were named the Octopus, the Skull and the Dinosaur Garden. 

I was there with a splinter group from a convention that was looking for some exercise and cheap thrills.  Why play golf like sane people when you can have fun dangling on a rope?

Eco-Tours Guadalajara, a company of athletic and mostly bi-lingual twenty-somethings, organized the mini-expedition.  Owner Luis Medina had charted a flight on a zip-line, a rappel down a 100-foot-tall boulder and the rock wall ascent. All of that was before lunch.  A short hike rounded out the day because there just wasn’t enough time for the normal fourth activity—mountain biking.

Medina is a pioneer in eco-tourism in Jalisco, the sprawling Mexican state that includes the beach resort of Puerto Vallarta, the metropolis of Guadalajara and even Tequila, the town where Jose Cuervo started making the Mexican national drink in 1795.

In fact, one of Eco-Tours Guadalajara’s most appealing tours has Tequila as its destination.  However, that outing includes tours of agave fields and then rappelling down a waterfall and taking a river swim before you get to the distillery tour.  One thing’s certain—you’ll be ready for a sample when you do get to Tequila.

Medina said the very idea of enjoying nature for nature’s sake has been slow to take root, but he feels a sense of accomplishment whenever he gains a convert, especially a Mexican convert.  He taught school for a decade before venturing into eco-tourism, but it’s clear he still has the heart of a teacher.

“The difference now,” he said, “is that my classroom has no walls.”

(For a serious research tool for planning a Guadalajara trip, find the Moon Handbook to the city by Society of American Travel Writers member and Mexico expert Bruce Whipperman.)