Tequila

These are the hearts of the agave plant. They steam them for 2 days and then use the juice to make tequila.

This is the blue agave plant used to make tequila.

This is one of the shops in the town of tequila where they offer free samples of tequila.

I finally made it on my trip to Tequila. I really liked the area. It was beautiful. The tour was good but slightly annoying at times. I thought I was going to be on a small van but ended up on a huge bus. The tour guide had a microphone and talked the entire time. She asked everyone on the bus to introduce themselves and say where they came from. Then she made everyone cheer when they said where they were from. Most of the people on the bus were from Mexico and there were only 3 people speaking english. She translated everything which made her speak twice as much.

We first visited Tres Hermanas and got to see how the agave is grown and processed into tequila. The blue agave plant is beautiful. They showed us the whole process and we got to taste everything from the raw plant, steamed plant to every step until they get to tequila. Then we started to do shots of Tequila. They served it with salt and lime and would make every repeat toasts which I didn{t understand. The final shot was a very expensive tequila (about $150. U.S. per bottle), They showed us how to drink it and we were not to use salt or lime with that one. I liked the cheaper ones with the salt and lime better. I guess that fits with me eating at restaurants with plastic bags covering the plates.

After the tequila distillery or whatever it is called, we made 3 more stops on our tour. One was downtown tequila. We had an hour and a half to walk around town. It was a nice little town with nothing to do but drink tequila and look at things to buy. I went to the Jose Cuervo place and had some tequila drink with one of the people that spoke english. He is a rancher from Wyoming (not a handsome cowboy Jane). Then I went to some other place and sampled some more tequila with the other english speaking person. Next we stopped at a restaurant. It was okay not great. Then we stopped at some place to sample eggnog. I didn{t understand the purpose of that. It was crowded and I didn{t like it so I sat outside and read until it was time to go.

The ride home was much quieter. I guess the tour guide didn{t feel like she had to talk so much into the microphone because everyone was full of tequila. When we got home the bus had to drive around town and drop everyone off. They would announce the name of the hotel that was coming next so the people could get ready to get off. I was embarrassed when they called out my hotel because it was hotel Tequila. I felt like everyone was looking around to see what kind of weirdo would stay at a Tequila hotel and go on a tequila tour. I had them drop me off close to the grocery store so I could buy some cup o soup. Then I went home, cooked my own dinner and walked around downtown Guadalajara. It{s a fun and beautiful city at night and I think they have a tradition of everyone riding bikes on Thursday night. The place was packed with people riding around. I wish I had a bike.

Today I got up early to get a 9am bus to Guanajuato. It was sad saying goodbye to my hotel staff. They were so nice and helpful. Almost every person that I have met in Mexico so far is really nice. I got a cab to the bus station and arrived at 8am only to find out that the 9am bus is already full. Now I am waiting until 11:15 to take the next bus. I had breakfast at the restaurant, talked to the tourist info person to find out what to do for 3 hours. They suggested sitting in the waiting room for my bus. Luckily they have a nice internet cafe here so I can bore everyone with my wordy blog. Maybe I will try to download some pictures because these computers are really fast.

I made reservations to stay in Casa Bertha Guanajuato. Trish, I think the website is www.paginasprodigy.com in case you want to look at it. I had to search on google and then select that one. It{s supposed to be nice. My friends stayed at it for 3 weeks and said they really like it.

Bebe, I forgot to tell you. I made this blog so that it couldn{t accept comments. They were confusing for me in the India blog and I thought it would be easier to just get email. Although I haven{t been able to check my email for a few days now.