Jerez and Guadalupe, Zacatecas

 JEREZ

I had the extra time to travel in the city so I stayed a couple of days longer and ventured to the nearby town of Jerez, a small and cute little place around an hours bus ride away. It's a traditional Mexican town with its central plaza and gardens surrounded by some very interesting striking buildings.




It is very sleepy and a short wander around its streets finds an active market and wandering locals looking for food and drink. I found a restaurant called El Camaron Loco (The crazy prawn / shrimp!) which served amazing tortas and had a strange mix of stuff all over the walls).


I also heard a very strange conversation in Spanglish in the square with a man talking to a friend asking if his other friends were in or ot of prison at that moment. Very strange. The trip was complete!

GUADALUPE

I knew that I would be getting lost at some point on this trip. I had been doing so so so well. I had been getting on and off of buses quickly effeciently and without problems. So it figures that the easiest of all them would cause the most problems! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Gudalupe is a town that is right on the doorstep of Zacatecas and should take 20mins to get there. It took me an hour and a bit.

I got the bus in the wrong direction and then had a very scenic 30 minute ride through the suburbs of the city and through heaps of strange neighbourhoods and industrial sites. It then looped back through the city and onto Guadalupe, where the driver didn't enter the city proper and I continued so I could view the same deserted suburbs and industrial sites of Guadalupe. Eventually I got off near a highway inhabited by dogs and chickens and walked to civilisation before having to catch another bus into the town centre. YAY!

At last I found the city centre!  WOO!

Deserted corridors at the ex-convento

The centre of Guadalupe is well worth visiting for the stunning covento de Guadalupe. It houses the city musuem which is beautiful in its grounds and also the art it displays. Nearly all focusing on religious imagery, the paintings here are stunning and the corridors and exhibition rooms are eerily quiet as you wander around. The place is really quite creepy and a random window smashing shut as I was looking at paintings of Jesus' crucifixtion did not help matters further. The old library here is especially impressive with old books flowing in every direction. 

I also had incredible Menudo (soup with tripe and spices – when its good its good and when its bad its nasty) here with heaps of occompaniments. YUM YUM YUM!

Getting back was very simple indeed! Hurrah and thank goodness for that!