The Central Western Highlands of Mexico are home to the atmospheric colonial towns of Guadalajara and Morelia, and also a centre of speciality sweets and Mexico’s most famous drink: Tequila.
Guadalajara
After a long ride on the overnight bus straight after El Chepe we arrived in Guadalajara. It was a nice change to be in a warm sunny climate after freezing each night in Creel. Time for shorts, sandals, singlets and ice cream!
The Old Town of Guadalajara
Guadalajara has a nicely preserved colonial old town with plenty of churches, palaces, theatres and government buildings built in the colonial style.
As you wander around it’s easy to get distracted by interesting buildings and statues, so that you can end up a long way from where you started without realising it.
But one of things Guadalajara is famous for are the murals painted inside a lot of these buildings. Like this giant one on the ceiling of the main staircase of the Government Palace. Imagine this greeting politicians on the way to work every morning.
Hospicio Cabanas
But the most famous murals are in the main church in the Hospicio Cabanas. This building had many different uses through its history such as: hospital, orphanage and barracks.
Much later in its history the painter Jose Orozco painted the walls and ceilings of the church. Normally you expect paintings in churches to show the good things about religion, like Jesus, Mary, angels, saints, heaven and so on. In these paintings Orozco pretty much got to paint what he wanted; which was everything he saw that was wrong with the world. Including religion. So it’s pretty bleak, but also fascinating, for church art.
Tequila
The town of Tequila is only an hour out of Guadalajara, so of course we had to take a tour! Alcohol based tours are always fun. We started the day at 9:30, stopping to pick up other people and supplies, and by 10:30 we were flying down the highway to Tequila all loaded up with tequila, mixers and mariachi music blaring out the radio. As the blue-grey agave blurred past our guide gave us a history of tequila.
The Legend of Tequila
The legend says that a pre-hispanic king was travelling when a storm came along so he had to find shelter. It was cold, so he wanted something to keep him warm. His travelling companions found some agave plants and put them in a fire. After a while juice came out of the plants and when they tasted it it was sweet. So they collected the juice and put it aside for later. When they made it to their destination a few days later they discovered that the juice had fermented, and that’s how the first fermented agave drinks were discovered. The pre-hispanic people grew agave to make a sweet, lightly alcoholic drink. When the Spanish came along they decided to help improve the drink using distillation equipment which brought the alcohol concentration from a few percent up to 38% which is what tequila (and mezcal) is today.
Making Tequila Today
They way they make the artisanal varieties today is pretty similar. They let the plants grow for 7-10 years, and then when they’re big enough they cut the leaves off which leaves behind the “pineapple” in the centre of the plant.
Then they fill a large oven with pineapples and steam them for 2 days. After they steam the pineapples they put them into a juicing machine that extracts the juice. Then the juice goes into large tanks to ferment for 5 days. After fermentation the lightly alcoholic juice is distilled twice to get white tequila. To get the aged tequila they put the white tequila into oak barrels for different lengths of time. The longer it stays in the barrels, the more expensive it becomes as the tequila absorbs the oak flavours and becomes smoother.
Top Class Tequila
Tequila in Australia has a bit of a reputation for being a low quality alcohol for getting drunk off. But in Mexico it’s a lot more like whisky or cognac where they carefully distill it then age it in oak barrels for years to make the top quality stuff. It’s also got protected status. Tequila can only be made from 100% blue agave from specific regions in Mexico. Mezcal is actually the “lesser” quality drink since it can be made from any type of agave, and anywhere in the world. On our tour we found a place in the cellar where they age the ultra-premium tequila. They even play it Beethoven 24/7 during the ageing to “improve” the tequila.
The Town of Tequila
After a thorough tasting session and plenty of free samples we had a bit of time to stumble around the town and admire the Voladores de Papantla.
A group of 4-5 people tie a length of rope around their waists and “fly” around a tall pole. The rope slowly unwinds from the top while it rotates, so the Voladores spiral down to the ground while playing music at the same time. Legends say that it was a ritual performed to ask the gods to bring rain.
Morelia’s Colonial Old Town
Morelia has kept its old town centre pretty much the same from when the Spanish first arrived. So it’s also full of old colonial-era palaces and churches.
Morelia is Also Famous for Sweets
Another thing Morelia kept from colonial times is their sweets making industry. A lot of the nunneries specialised in making sweets. Originally only Spanish woman could join a nunnery after their family made a large donation to the church. The nuns then trained these women in the secret art of sweets-making. Eventually after the churches lost their influence and power during the Mexican Revolution, the nuns left and started their own workshops and taught other people how to make their sweets.
So now you can go to the sweets market in town and buy all sorts of fruits, nuts, seeds and drinks soaked in honey, milk caramel or sugar. But not chocolate, that wasn’t a speciality here. So we spent a good afternoon “researching” this important history in the sweets market and sweets museum…
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