This, according to legend, is where it all began. This plaza, near the heart of the town that is considered Mexico's heart, gave birth to the Mariachi. However, seeing as no one is even sure where the name comes from, I'll assume that this birthplace is a symbolic one. It is an elongated and small plaza, open on the short ends, and it stays in perpetual shadow. It is filled with plastic tables. One of its sides is marked by a line of arches, and beneath the arches are more plastic tables. The opposite building contains shops, some musical, but their corrugated steel doors have rolled down for the day.
There are Mariachis here, of course, and they look bored. They sit alone, or in small groups, and read the paper or talk or play checkers with painted bottle caps or get their shoes shined or just stare off into space. It appears that business is slow. The Mariachi uniform is notable in that it makes just about all the men (most of whom are older and wearing their years about their waists) look good. It is a proud costume: shiny boots, shiny belt buckles, glittering embroidery. The pants and jacket always look too small and always look just right that way. The white shirt is adorned with a tie, a long, bowed, puffy device that I like to call a "cravate".
Mariachis (the term can refer to the music, the musician, or the whole band) come in two flavours: black, and not black. The black mariachis (I'm talking about costume colour, not skin colour) are unaffiliated mercenaries; hire one, and he'll construct a band out of whomever else he can drag up. The non-black mariachis are already members of a band; they come preassembled. There are maybe 20 or 30 mariachis in the plaza, of various colours. They hang their instruments in the trees when they are not in use, and the guitars and violins dangle there like pagan offerings.
There are people everywhere, but the place isn't close to crowded. Most are just passing through, but some sit at tables and nurse sodas or beers while they wait for someone else to pay for a band.
This is an unfortunate location for the birth of such a beautiful tradition. The buildings on the long sides lean over the plaza, making it dark and cramped. The clutter of tables doesn't help, and neither do the shuttered shops to the south. The guidebook doesn't recommend staying here after dark, and even now, in the late afternoon, it just doesn't feel like a nice place to linger.
I spent the day wandering through some museums and exploring the long string of plazas stretching east away from the church. My favourite spot was the Cabaņas, a sprawling building containing incredible murals by Jose Clemente Orozco. The market was huge, covering three floors, and had more of the same old stuff. At night the plazas were packed with people, mostly families out for the day. Performers drew crowds -- musicians, magicians, dancers -- and there was even a political rally. Vendors sold unidentified sweet-smelling flat fried things, gum, bubble-blowing apparati, cheap fake Reebok handbags, batteries, and all kinds of souvenirs. Teenage boys tried to sell me watches; younger children peddled gum.
The sight of kids working on the streets, some as young as four or five, is no longer shocking. These are old children, even at that age. The abuse and rejection of street life shows in their eyes. They've lost their innocence, their curiosity, and they look tired. But working the streets, selling gum or washing windows, is still a game for them, in some way, albeit a very boring one. They are innattentive, distracted, and not too concerned about making the sale.
I made a list of things I want to do while travelling. On there is: "buy a bottle of tequila from the source". Well, I'm at the source, in a garden at the Sauza distillery. I may buy a bottle later, but I can just as easily get the same stuff at home. In fact, Vancouver's got a better selection: Tequila is a company town, and only Sauza and Cuervo products can be readily found.
I decided to forgo the "Tequila Train" excursion from Guadalajara, with its Mariachis and open bar and US$44 price tag, and made my way out to Tequila on my own. It took two-and-a-half hours, and there were a few dicey moments where I wasn't sure if I was on the right bus, but eventually I made it to the town of Tequila, population 35,000, for the grand total of 31 pesos.
I found the Jose Cuervo plant, which was right next to the town plaza, and took the tour. It was in Spanish, and I was amidst a gaggle of students who were eager to get to the tequila tasting at the end. We followed the process step by step, from the sourcing of piņas (the heart of the agave plant) to cooking, mashing, distilling, and aging. After the cooking step we got to suck on some steamed agave leaves, and they were sweet and musty, and underneath the sweetness you could definitely taste the flavour that is tequila.
Eventually we reached the tasting stage, and I held my own against some not-so-discreet elbowing as tiny shots were poured. I sampled Cuervo 1800, the most aged tequila they were offering, and it was just okay -- although I must admit that my palate isn't very refined. I visited the gift shop and tried to converse with the proprieter about the recent surge in tequila prices (owing to a shortage of agave due to drought or something) and she had no idea what I was talking about. She pointed at the piles of piņas stacked next to the cookers, and said, "We have lots of agave." I moved on.
My next stop was Sauza, where I hoped to take a tour in English. My arrival appeared to be rather unexpected, and when they finally managed to locate a guide for the one o'clock tour I was the only visitor. Luis led me through the plant, starting with an incredible mural by Flores which depicted the creation and consumption of tequila, and then took me through the same steps as the Cuervo tour. In english, though, I got some extra info. For example, each pina weighs (on average) thirty-five kilograms and produces six or seven liters of tequila. Also, Tequila is distilled twice: the first distillation take the alcohol content to about 30% and removes any solids, while the second takes the alcohol content to about 50% and removes dangerous alcohols like ethyl and methyl. Tequila is diluted with distilled water before bottling -- by law, Tequila must be 38% alcohol. 50%-alcohol-tequila is impossible to find. On the tour I got to taste the raw agave juice (called aguamiel, "honey water") before it was fermented. It was thin, watery, brown, and slightly bitter. Not particularly appetizing at that stage. After fermentation and distillation, the tequila is aged in either huge Canadian white oak vats (for reposado tequila) or smaller French oak barrels (for aņejo tequila). The only difference between the various tequilas from any single company is the amount of aging: anywhere from two to twelve months for reposado ("rested") tequila, and from one to three years for aņejo ("aged") tequila.
I'd planned to give Guadalajara more time, maybe three or four nights, but after a day and a half of exploring I was done. The big city was too impersonal and unmanageable.
Ajijic is a small town just south of Guadalajara, full of retired gringos and their accompanying gift shops. Its cobblestoned main street leads down to a concrete fishing pier that sits, shipwrecked, overlooking horses in a grassy field. Overconsumption has caused the shoreline of Lake Chapala to recede by 100 meters in some places. Ajijic is a quiet little city, most of the year, but not when I got there. I arrived smack in the middle of The Party.
At noon they were launching fireworks -- essentially packages of gunpowder strapped to bamboo sticks that would fly up into the air and then explode with a flinch-and-headache inducing bang. Fortunately, the noise letup in the afternoon as the revellers either took a siesta or got busy preparing for that night's festivities. The party was nine days long, and this was only day four or five. I think most people were siesta'ing, saving their strength for the final push. Those that weren't asleep were setting up a stage, or attaching more fireworks to a fifty-foot pole that would later be hoisted upright and lit ablaze.
That night's official festivities began with ringing bells and a barrage of fireworks, then a parade led by dancing indian children, and a band, and then a sampling of the townsfolk. They all piled into the church, with the exception of the indian children, and said mass. Afterwards there was more bell ringing, another barrage of fireworks, and the people poured out to party.
The streets were lined with vendors: taco stands, frying up greasy meat on large black comals (a domed pan); fruit stands with cups of papaya, watermelon, and pineapple slices; men with machetes chopping up sugar cane; fresh hot cakes; hotdogs wrapped in bacon; hamburgers; potato chips and french fries fried right on the street (they even have their own poutine: french fries topped with chopped up hot dogs, mayonaise, chili sauce, crumbled cheese, and, of course, lime juice); peanuts, roasted in comals (turned over to make a bowl instead of a dome); slices of flans and cakes; jello; and there was even a pizza stand. For drinks there were bars to serve mixed drinks like piņa coladas and margaritas; push carts with aguas de jamaica (a cold sweet tea made from a dried red flower), de horchata (a cinnamony sweet rice milk), and others; other vendors sold steaming canelas -- a hot cinammon drink with your choice of alcohol; and of course, there was plenty of beer and soda.
Still more vendors walked through the crowds selling trinkets or balloons, and on the streets leading away from the plaza were children's rides: bumper cars, a merry-go-round, a mini roller coaster, and some spinning things. In the other direction were games. One which I played involved tossing pesos onto a board; if your coin landed inside a numbered square (completely inside, of course) you won that many pesos back again. I won five pesos on my first throw, and them promptly lost them all on the next five throws. Other games involved throwing darts or shooting BBs. Two trampolines had been set up for the kids, and an enterprising man let me look through his telescope at the rings of Saturn for just 3 pesos.
Soon the band took the stage. Eleven musicians stood in a row at the front -- trumpets, clarinets, saxophones and singers -- while behind them were three more horns, two percussionists, and the a tuba. They played "banda" music, which is kind of like polka music, but not so corny and much more Mexican. The tuba player was brilliant: he kicked out a mean bass line, bopping and strutting away behind the first row of green-suited musicians.
The plaza was packed with people. The thing to do, apparently, was to walk around and around the plaza, and an endless stream of young girls and couples slowly shuffled by. Their progress was impeded because one corner of the plaza was packed with people watching the band, but somehow, although the line of people occasionally stopped, it remained unbroken.
I sat and wandered, and ate and sat, and drank and wandered, and sat and wandered some more, and by 10:30 I was exhausted. I wanted to stay to soak up more of the party, and to watch the inflammation of the fifty-foot pole, but I had to admit defeat. I returned to my room while the fireworks continued to assault the sky. When I last checked my watch, at midnight, I could still hear the tuba player burping out his bass line.
At 6:00 the next morning an explosion shook my hotel room. It was followed by several smaller ones, and then a band started playing outside my window. I listened as they marched off towards the plaza. Another day of partying had begun.