Two days in Tonala

We had two choices for hotels and we went with the less expensive Hacienda del Sol which turned out well. The other option was the Casa de las Palomas for about 100 pesos more. Hacienda del Sol was 450 pesos for 2 people, had a nice restaurant in the lobby and large indoor parking. Both are close to downtown and the Art Tianguis.

We had planned on staying 3 days and seeing more of Guadalajara but we found Tonala not very interesting and lacking decent restaurants and a taxi to Guad Centro was 150 pesos. Didn't want to deal with buses or park downtown. Walked a lot Saturday and did the Artisania Tianguis on Sunday morning. The tianguis goes on for blocks and blocks but I found very little was special. The shops that are there every day are not real easy to find. I'm sure we missed a few good stores but maybe another time

Sunday afternoon we took a taxi to downtown Guad, walked alot more and took one of the Tapatio tour buses around the city center. More on downtown and the tour on another post.

Casa de las Palomas

Hacienda del Sol

Hacienda del Sol restaurant

First church on the Tonala plaza

Opposing church across the plaza

Upscale artesenia shop

The endless tianguis (market)

A GPS trip to Tonala

Glen and I just got back from an enjoyable Melaque - Tonala - Tequila - Melaque trip and were accompanied by his Tom Tom GPS. First time experience for me and generally it was a pretty good guide but it did have it's issues. It talks to you if you didn't know.

Coming up highway 80 Mrs Tom did not know there was an Autlan bypass and wanted to take us thru town. After many "turn around" requests and distracted we ended up in El Grullo which is not close to highway 80.

Further on 'the voice' wanted us to turn left a few miles before Lopez Mateos but the intersection was vague so we continued. On Mateos it wanted us to turn to Jocotepec so Glen obediently drove along the lake to Chapala. Any clues on that one?

Tonala has redone some exits so we couldn't follow directions and ended up paying an exit and entrance toll at the next underpass. It did find the hotel after we got off the freeway.

Our guide did take us to Tequila on the free road and then back towards Ameca and the cross over road to Cocula and highway 80 but we had to ignore a few instructions on the way. Glen says many areas in the country and smaller towns are unmapped and the GPS gets confused.

Part of the problem is he hadn't updated his maps for 3 years. I drive less and less in Mexico but still interesting experience.

Highway 80 with a little rian