To Guadalajara airport to pick up a friend
Yesterday Kelly and I took a taxi to the Guadalajara airport. We'd heard it was half an hour from the Lake Chapala area, and that's exactly what it took us. We were going to meet a close friend, Peter Rice, our "teenage slave" when we were building our house in Colorado. He's now 22 and a professional journalist in Oregon.
Peter had made his plane reservations to fly into Mexico City when we thought we would be in our rented house in Bernal, Queretaro, by now, but since we are still lakeside, he just added a round-trip ticket between Mexico City and Guadalajara to his itinerary.
He had already gone through customs and gotten his tourist visa when he arrived in Mexico City earlier in the day, so Kelly and I asked directions to the national arrivals area of the airport. When we walked down a wide corridor with nobody else on it, Kelly suspected something but I was oblivous till we were stopped by security people and told to stay behind a yellow line at the other end of the walkway.
The security arrangements were quite similar to the US airports. I had taken my camera along to get a picture for the blog, but there were signs up saying not to use cameras or videocameras. Passengers picked up their luggage before coming into the public area. Peter said that he'd gone through a line with metal detectors and x-ray machines in Mexico City before boarding the flight to Guadalajara.
The Guadalajara airport was surprisingly small for Mexico's second largest city, with somewhere around five million inhabitants, but this airport was smaller than one you'd see in a lot of small American cities. There are several reasons for this: the excellent country-wide Mexican bus system means that much travel within the country takes place on the buses. Also, the Mexico City airport has long been the hub of the Mexican airline setup. When it began to be overwhelmed by traffic a decade or more ago, airports in other Mexican cities were expanded and improved, a process that is still going on today.
There were two arrival areas, one (NAC) for national arrivals and one (INT) for international arrivals. Almost all signs were in both English and Spanish. Since we had arrived a little early, we stood (there were fewer seats than you'd see in a US airport) and watched people coming out of the international arrival areas. Almost all were Mexicans being met by family or friends, with many hugs and much enthusiasm. We'd already noticed that the typical Mexican cheerfulness that we like so much was evident around the airport.
Peter eventually appeared and we came back to the Lake Chapala area in the same taxi. (Total cost, including the driver's waiting, was $55 US. There are buses but they involve a long walk from the airport to the highway.) We took him out to a typical Mexican dinner, and strolled down to the edge of the lake at dusk. Here I could take a photo with no problem!
Peter had made his plane reservations to fly into Mexico City when we thought we would be in our rented house in Bernal, Queretaro, by now, but since we are still lakeside, he just added a round-trip ticket between Mexico City and Guadalajara to his itinerary.
He had already gone through customs and gotten his tourist visa when he arrived in Mexico City earlier in the day, so Kelly and I asked directions to the national arrivals area of the airport. When we walked down a wide corridor with nobody else on it, Kelly suspected something but I was oblivous till we were stopped by security people and told to stay behind a yellow line at the other end of the walkway.
The security arrangements were quite similar to the US airports. I had taken my camera along to get a picture for the blog, but there were signs up saying not to use cameras or videocameras. Passengers picked up their luggage before coming into the public area. Peter said that he'd gone through a line with metal detectors and x-ray machines in Mexico City before boarding the flight to Guadalajara.
The Guadalajara airport was surprisingly small for Mexico's second largest city, with somewhere around five million inhabitants, but this airport was smaller than one you'd see in a lot of small American cities. There are several reasons for this: the excellent country-wide Mexican bus system means that much travel within the country takes place on the buses. Also, the Mexico City airport has long been the hub of the Mexican airline setup. When it began to be overwhelmed by traffic a decade or more ago, airports in other Mexican cities were expanded and improved, a process that is still going on today.
There were two arrival areas, one (NAC) for national arrivals and one (INT) for international arrivals. Almost all signs were in both English and Spanish. Since we had arrived a little early, we stood (there were fewer seats than you'd see in a US airport) and watched people coming out of the international arrival areas. Almost all were Mexicans being met by family or friends, with many hugs and much enthusiasm. We'd already noticed that the typical Mexican cheerfulness that we like so much was evident around the airport.
Peter eventually appeared and we came back to the Lake Chapala area in the same taxi. (Total cost, including the driver's waiting, was $55 US. There are buses but they involve a long walk from the airport to the highway.) We took him out to a typical Mexican dinner, and strolled down to the edge of the lake at dusk. Here I could take a photo with no problem!
posted by Rosana Hart @ Sunday, January 22, 2006
2 Comments:
At January 22, 2006 11:22 PM,
macmember said…
Hello
Glad to see Kelly up and around. Just curious, is that trash that we see in the picture around their feet. Overall how would you rate the cleanliness of the area and the lake?
Also, the area where you said you looked at the houses, were they mostly empty? Did you notice a lot of roof dogs and barking there?
Beverly
At January 23, 2006 11:28 AM,
Rosana Hart said…
Hi Beverly -- I think the light spots you can see beyond their feet are the lake water showing through the very invasive water hyacinth that thrives in the very polluted waters of the lake. There is plenty of trash along the lakeshore, though. In the streets, the amount of garbage seems to depend on how much sweeping the resident women do in any particular section of a street. The trash pickup here is 3 mornings a week, by the way.
There was no way to tell if the houses were occupied or not in Chapala Haciendas, other than whether a car was parked there. I wasn't focusing on that but imagine that quite a few of the houses are lived in most of the time but whether that is more or less than half I don't know. There were no roof dogs in that development, as roof dogs are an urban phenomenon and Chapala Haciendas has large lots. I didn't notice any barking at that time of day. Overall, it seemed like a rather quiet and pleasant spot... just too quiet for our tastes!
To find out more about it, the link I put up to its website should yield someone you could email.
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