November 26-28. Final Days

November 26, 2023. Tonala—A Humongous Market

November 27-28, 2023–and beyond

I read in two different places online that on Sundays, there is a HUMONGOUS market in Tonala. So, after some Google “misunderstandings” we came upon the right bus. An hour later we arrived at the market in Tonala. I can’t begin to describe how truly huge this market is. It goes on for blocks and blocks and blocks. One can find anything and everything there. Think Amazon everything! 

One must also battle incredible crowds of people. Suffocating, large masses of people moving along from stall to stall; from street to street to street. Here’s a photo of a statue on a street intersection. This depicts how one needs to plow through the market.

Here’s a pic of me at a side street—not the real market street. I’m taking a little space to breath.

Now, I have to say “‘Oh, no!” because I don’t have any pictures of the actual market. I bought a lot of stuff and so did Michele.

Wait!!! I found one photo. I think it says it all about how I was feeling…

OK, enough. I did like the market and the shopping overall. So much stuff! I’m glad I got this experience.

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After an exhausting day of shopping, we hopped back on a bus and spent another hour returning to Guadalajara BUT we didn’t return to the hotel. Michele discovered that she’d left her jacket at the Ramen restaurant SO we just stayed on the bus to the restaurant. We weren’t sure when to get off cuz Google told me one stop and told Michele another stop. Sneaky Google! We did get off at roughly where we needed to. In order to expedite the getting of the jacket, Michele used Google Translate to say, “I left my jacket here yesterday.” (Or something like that.) So, with phone in hand, we entered the restaurant and met the same young man who recognized us from day before. Michele read from her phone… “Ayer dejé mi chaqueta aquí.”

WEEELLLL!!! I don’t know what she really said, but the young man burst out laughing…guffawing, really. She turned her phone around and showed him the message. Then we followed him to the kitchen in the back. We were all laughing along by this time. After retrieving the jacket, Michele asked the young man…and another one…to tell us how to say in Spanish, “I left my jacket here yesterday.”  The words and pronunciation we got back were better than Google could ever produce. After a final little giggle, we thanked them profusely and left. So there, Google!

We ended the day at the church square where I had a tamale. No tomatoes, no salsa, no chile. We talked to a young man from San Jose who was there studying Spanish. He took one look at my “no jitomate, no salsa, no chile” and very aptly said, “You’re in the wrong country.” How true—as far as food is concerned.

The next morning I woke up with Montezuma’s Revenge and spent the morning tossing my cookies—or maybe I should say …my tamales. I felt I was in the wrong country for sure. But I still love Mexico overall. Monday was a lost day.

Tuesday, I said goodbye to Michele in Guadalajara and got on a bus for Morelia. On Wednesday, I flew back to Spokane, leaving Michele to have another week of adventures. In Denver (5-hour layover), I was joined by my great-niece, Sarah who came to cold, gray, snowy, icy, dreary Spokane for a few days. 

There’s no place like home.