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A good friend is a DAR member not me ;-) But she did invite me to a luncheon meeting with the new U.S. Consul General. The meeting was at a fellow DAR member's home, in Zapopan , NW of Guadalajara. This is Hacienda Santa Lucia, a 17th century hacienda, with huge grounds, an old tequila distillery and a beautiful old chapel. The marriage between the American nursing student and the Mexican hacienda owner happened many years ago. Betty and her husband now have grand children. Her son, a wonderful chef uses the old estate as a place for weddings and quincieras. We had an incredible luncheon. The entire place was just beautiful. The funny thing was as we were getting ready to leave. Everyone started pulling out their clean, empty, 2 liter soda bottles. The young waiter takes them off to fill at the oak barrel that is aging the tequila. By supplying our own bottles this aged tequila only costs us 150 pesos. Harry says it is a good as Don Julio!
Humberto, Betty's husband also raises bulls for the bull ring. I went walking
but I didn't see them anywhere. Maybe that was a good thing! I had a wonderful day and the food, company and scenery were all pretty spectacular! The new Consular General was a very down to earth and pleasant lady. Apparently an improvement over the previous one!! That is her in the green suit next to Betty the patrona of the hacienda. More pictures at
CASA Foodie Field Trip We were doing the driving on this one. Our friends Dagmar, Jack and Skip were in our car. Approximately 30 Culinary Arts Society of Ajijic members were off to the country to see Finos Caprilla, Carlos Rubio's goat cheese factory, the Quixote tequila distillery, and Charly's Swiss restaurant. The drive was into the country about 2 and 1/2 hours from Guadalajara. At the tequila distillery their fountain is a replica of the agave flower, a bit phallic, but pretty. The conveyer belt in the right hand picture is grinding up the agave bulb after it is cooked and extracting the juice to send it off via pipe to the cooling an fermenting tanks. There was a tasting room after the tour but most of the people, Harry included didn't think the tequila was good enough to buy.
After the tour at the cheese factory Carlos opened up all his best for us to sample. The place was immaculate. We had to walk through a little disinfectant foot bath even to go in! We all bought cheese which he had delivered to the restaurant where we had lunch.
The restaurant was out of town in a beautiful valley. Charly made us a wonderful lunch. We had to eat it and run. Jack had dinner guests coming and we had to get him home before they arrived. Harry made it back to Ajijic with 15 minutes to spare!!
Overnight to Colima:
We walked back to the hotel, shopping on the way. Harry and I went to a vivierro and I got a big pot of orchids just about to bloom. They are up on the terrace right now looking very pretty. We checked out of the hotel and stopped on the way back at the restaurant called Pinar del Chayan. It sits out in the country on a big lake among large trees. The food is very good, but it has another claim to fame. If you walk up the hill behind it, you can see the volcano. As we were about to go up it started to pour and the owners said with the cloud cover we would not be able to see much so bummer no volcano pictures. Then it was off home. We had a great time and Colima is a beautiful city.
4 Wheeling to San Sebastian: We took this trip the second week in July. Actually the wrong time to take it! Rainy Season, and we did get quite a bit of rain up there in the mountains. Other than getting soaked, why is that a problem?? Well the town is about 8000 feet above sea level and the only way up is an unpaved, often wash boarded out dirt road. As it circled around and up the mountain, heavy rains caused the streams to come over the road and there are NO BRIDGES! There were places where one whole side of the road had washed out into infinity. But the little Jeep Wrangler, just soldiered on. In fact since Duff our traveling companion in the Land Rover is always the bravest driver, but not the fastest, the little Jeep Wrangler driven by the always intrepid Harry, often led. He was the little engine that could. I loved the part where we came round the corner and directly into a large herd of cattle and cowboys. The cowboys tried to herd them off to the sides but they didn't always cooperate. We waded on through with me waving my baseball cap out the window and yeehahing at the cows. San Sebastian is north west of Guadalajara. Many people not possessing an intrepid Wrangler or Land Rover, fly up there. It has its own little airport there in a flat pasture. It is above Puerta Vallarta. San Sebastian was an old silver mining town. We stayed in a huge old hacienda ( 100 pesos per person, per night!) There was a staff there who cooked for us daily, the rooms were high ceilings with neat old furniture, but modern baths! No phones or TVs in the rooms of course. They rounded up a couple of pretty young chicas to be our tour guides for a day. Plus we had wonderful Jonathan, a nephew visiting from California. His aunt was the cook at the hotel. Such a personable 14 year old who spoke both English and Spanish. He came along to translate. The village was like the Pacific northwest with ferns and moss growing all over the fences and walls. They get a lot of rain and moisture from PV below. Click on the picture to enlarge.
The picture on the left is Houston's estate the one on the right is the courtyard where we ate at the hacienda/hotel. Click on them to enlarge. We toured an old hacienda owned by John Houston, which had some of the old silver smelting furnaces still standing. Lots of memorabilia from JH's era plus a lot of lovely old things from before his time. Then we went to a small shade grown coffee plantation to buy coffee in a variety of roasts and decaf, and had an informative and hilarious visit to the town museum. Run by and owned by a marvelous and talkative old lady, who is the surviving member of one of the original three Spanish families that settled the town. In order to preserve their Spanish blue blood they only married among themselves! Thus when she married her husband who was also her uncle and her cousin. Shades of the deep south!! Another old hacienda in town has all the old silver mining offices and assay rooms as well as the entrance to a tunnel that goes all the way out of town to the Houston hacienda. Supposedly they brought the silver into town that way to thwart the banditos!! Pretty tricky! The next day we took the cars up to La Blufa. This is a bluff at the top of the mountain another 100 feet above the village. From there if it is clear you can see Banderas Bay at PV far below. This is a tougher road than the one into town! 4 wheel, sometimes 4-low and only first or second gear all the way. Little Jeep chugged right up , but..15 minutes from the top the Land Rover over-heated and Jeepster had to ferry all six of us to the top in shifts! The view even though cloudy was incredible.
That afternoon it was off to a very swanky B&B in Mascota. First though we had to back down the wash board mountain road as Mascota is in the valley. Next day it was off to Talpa, the Mexican version of Lourdes. The cathedral and museum there document the history of the miracles that have occurred in the church. The miracles are attributed to the Virgin of Talpa. We have friends who have a gardener with a sick child so we had to bring them some souvenirs from the cathedral and say a prayer for the child.
By now it was time to head home. It took a lot of washing to get all the mud and grime off the Jeep!! |
DAR
and Tequila at an Old Hacienda- 
This was the path to their corrals.
The
Hash House Harriers group sometimes takes an overnight to walk in another city.
We went to Colima on August 13th. It is a beautiful colonial city with fabulous
squares and gardens all over the city. We met at the hotel and as a group went
out to walk the next morning. This is the first plaza where we stretched before
walking around it three times. I am sure the natives looked at us as one bunch
of crazy gringos. From there we walked along the city streets to three other
plazas. and then met at a big covered arcade across from the cathedral.
We all
had breakfast there. 
