20 February 2010 Saturday
Well I started writing this while sitting in the parking lot of the Tequila distiller Jose Cuervo in Tequila, Mexico. Now I say “I started writing this” while in the parking lot…we thought we had permission to park overnight in this high walled very secured parking lot
Well I started writing this while sitting in the parking lot of the Tequila distiller Jose Cuervo in Tequila, Mexico. Now I say “I started writing this” while in the parking lot…we thought we had permission to park overnight in this high walled very secured parking lot
but the guard at the parking lot had another idea…”you’ve got to leave !!!”. OK, we left, but before I continue on, here is our GPS location for the parking lot and the town of Tequila… 20.88511N, 103.84378W.
A lot of the towns we visit just don’t give us any room to drive down the main and side streets but Tequila is different…at least so far. The books we’ve read about Tequila (located about 40 miles west of Guadalajara) and the many tours that are available from all the different distilleries told us that the best tour can be made by visiting the (Sauza) Jose Cuervo distillery
A lot of the towns we visit just don’t give us any room to drive down the main and side streets but Tequila is different…at least so far. The books we’ve read about Tequila (located about 40 miles west of Guadalajara) and the many tours that are available from all the different distilleries told us that the best tour can be made by visiting the (Sauza) Jose Cuervo distillery
and that can be found by driving straight into town, past the church on the right, and after making the mandatory right turn it is on the left... It was perfect, not a glitch was had, and we even found a parallel parking spot for me to slide into. Then it was off to find out if we could still get a tour before the day was done. We found that the “English” tour would take place at 3pm which would give us a chance to have lunch and tour the town a little prior to getting back in time for our tour. At 3 we met our tour guide, saw a short movie, and started out and into the distillery. One of our first stops was in front of the furnaces that steam the Blue Agave “heart”.
Now this “heart” looks like a large bulb except that at the time of harvest it is sitting above ground with lots of very pointy large leaves coming out at all angles and if they hadn’t been pruning the tips since day “one”, they could be very dangerous to handle.
Now this tour was a tasting and educational tour and our first taste was here…a taste of the raw agave heart (kind of like a raw potato, starchy..). Our second taste came just around the back side of the furnace area. This time the agave heart tasted like a sweet and sticky cane sugar stick. Now remember, this is a tasting tour… Next in line, was the” very raw” first liquids of tequila…otherwise, pure rot-gut. God, that was awful !!! From here on the tastings (an additional 7 good sized shots and a special Margarita) got better and better. Now it was about this point that I asked our guide about our staying the night in their parking lot…”Not a Problem…”. Well it was a good tour and we did really enjoy the tequila and, we really didn’t want to drive that motor home out of that gated parking lot, but ... Well we drove out without a problem but the problem arrived in front of us about 100 yards down a narrow street…the two way turned to a “One Way” going back the way we came so we had to turn around. We did experience a horn honk or two and that was really uncalled for. On the other hand, I thought I did a great job under the circumstances. As I was just making the last of my “U-turn”, a little red car pulled over to the side and stopped. A man dressed in a nice suit and tie came over and asked us if we were trying to get back into the plaza area and if we were, he would love to guide us out of this tight situation we were in. His thought was we would go over one more corner and turn left and that would take us back into town…wrong. The bridge had been destroyed and there now was a detour (without any signs telling him or us this problem…). Well thank God this man was sent to us as we would still be trying to find our way back into civilization. If we drove 1 paved section of “roadway”, we drove 5 dirt and cobblestone sections and all the while with a 15 foot concrete wall on one side of us while on the other it was just a grassy, tree, swampy area. Well he finally got us back into town, and right back at the plaza we were looking for. As a matter of fact, as we pulled up to the plaza a car vacated a parking spot that was long enough for us to pull into so we quickly pulled to the curb and settled in for the night.
Yep, we’re going to stay parked at the plaza and with the church right across the street,
we’re going to try to get some sleep as well. We found that sleeping was going to be a little tough. This being a Saturday night in a Mexican town, parked at the one and only plaza, and the “whole town is a tequila distillery”… Well let’s say that they don’t have a problem with “cruising” or with loud music coming out of every vehicle that made it around and around and around that plaza until very late in the morning… Well would we go back??? Yep, in a minute and we’d probably park in the same place seeing as how there isn’t a campground within 30 miles. The drive to Tequila and the drive away from Tequila as we headed back towards the coast was great. A little up and down while in the hills and mountains and even a volcano that shot huge lava rocks miles away (notice the lava on both sides of the road..)
Even with the twist and curves for all those miles it was still a beautiful drive. It was so different from what we’ve seen before as we’ve traveled and it also gave us a chance to see “The Blue Agave” fields that seemed to go on forever,
crossing one mountain or hill and then on to the next…Man, just think of all that Tequila !!!