After Vochorama, it was my turn to suffer Moctezuma’s revenge. We ended up staying in the same little hotel in Zapopan, a north suburb of Guadalajara, for five nights.
Neither one of us was in great shape to do much, so our days were limited to quick half hour walks around town. On our last day, we took a bus to downtown Guadalajara, but we lasted about one hour before we took a taxi back. The highlight of the stay in Zapopan was meeting Anna and Juan Pablo, two new friends we had met at the VW show. They have a combi camper, and were full of suggestions on where to go in the next few days.
The next day, with our newly acquired knowledge of the things to see around Jalisco, we went south again. We had lunch in Tlaquepaque, a southern suburb, and then left for Ajijic. This time we didn’t stay in a hotel. We are driving a Westy, darn it! We shouldn’t be spending so much on hotels. So we just parked in the malecón in front of the lake and popped the top. I know, living on the edge.
The next day we made it to Tapalpa, a mountain town that Anna and Juan Carlos had raved about. It was a great change after many days in the heat. A beautiful little stone town, high up in the mountains, with amazing views.
We walked around town a bit, and then went to look at some rocks. Not far from town, there’s these rock formations in the middle of a valley. We would have loved to camp there, but there was no car access, and we felt like walking around town that night.
Back in town, we decided to just park in front of the main square, next to the church, and pop the top. I was amazed at how nobody even seemed to notice or care that we were there sleeping. It felt like we could have stayed a week without problems.
The next day we went to check out the waterfall. After getting lost a couple of times, we got to the end of a long, difficult road, where we hired a guide with an Angry Birds hat to walk us to the waterfall proper.
The way back took long enough that we made it close to sunset. So we parked in almost the same spot again and called it a day.
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steph