Tequila, Shopping, & Mariachi

We have enjoyed two more days in beautiful, sunny Guadalajara. Our second night here we went to the home of one of Craig's colleagues for a wonderful catered dinner. Hugo's home was in a very nice part of the city where homes were surrounded by very high walls with barbed wire at the top and many homes had guards. It was beautiful. We had a catered four course dinner and enjoyed a mariachi band.
My favorite picture from Mexico, taken in Tlaquepaque. This is a part of Guadalajara where there are many shops and we enjoyed buying a few items, stopping for a snack and taking pictures.
After our afternoon of shopping, we had a reception and dinner with a local Guadalajaran law firm. The dinner was held at a grand Mexican palace. It was beautiful. Again, we had a live Mariachi band and we enjoyed the party late into the night. I am a little Mariachi-ed out at this point though.

This morning, after visiting the pewter factory (cheap, cool stuff), we hired cars and nine of us went to Tequila country. We had an authentic Mexican family style lunch (at 4:00, which is a normal time for lunch here) and toured the tequila factory. It was very interesting and the fruit from the agave plant tasted really good. Tonight we are headed off to our last dinner with the Meritas group. I am enjoying the warm weather and the interesting sights.This is a field of agave plants, used to make tequila. It takes 8-10 years for the fruit to ripen.This is the agave fruit after it has been harvested. It is being prepared for the cooking process. We tasted it after it was cooked. I loved the flavor.

These are some of the homes at the distillery where some of the workers live. The distillery was really like a little town. They have a library, a chapel, soccer fields, school teachers, and homes. They had armed guards at the entrance.