Guadalajara is the next stop on our trail, and is our gateway to the colonial interior of Mexico.  Let us start this post by showering you with a trivia tid bit for your next cocktail party: This city is named after the Spanish city of Guadalajara, the name of that city in turn originates from the Arabic word wad al hayara (sp?), which roughly translates to “Valley of Stones”; the literal translation of the Iberian name Arriaca, meaning “stony river”.   What would I do without Wikipedia?

The downtown area of Guadalajara is great for spending an afternoon walking around, but man is this a big city! 4,095,715 people in the Guadalajara Metropolitan area. Lacey spent some time here back in her high school days on exchange, but she didn’t even remember how big this city really is.  It was a bit of a shock for us, our last “City” was San Diego over 2 months ago!

The highlight of Guadalajara (for us) is the Mercado Libre located near the old cathedral. It is the classic Mexican mercado only on steroids, 4 stories and a whole block where you can find anything and everything you could ever want and more. The place is huge, you could spend an entire day getting lost (really lost) in the place and still not see the whole thing.

The other sight not to be missed in Guadalajara is the Teatro Degollado next to the cathedral in downtown. It is a beautiful building and the inside has a great mural on the ceiling.

Not the greatest image, but I think it depicts the grandeur of the Degollado Theater

At the theater we met Carlos Hernandez and Enrique Manzo two  industrial design students who had meticulously  created a huge sculpture of Mary Joseph and Baby Jesus, a floating angel and a reproduction of the theater out of cardboard. Pretty impressive stuff.