Obstacle Cycling: Riding Road Bikes in Guadalajara

We are avid road cyclists. We loved living in Colorado because of the many glorious riding routes we could choose from, ranging from bike trails into Denver to loops on mountain roads. We usually rode two or three times a week, including a long ride on the weekend. Lisa rocks a Specialized carbon fiber road bike with about 27 gears, and Bob has a classic green Bianchi.

So we optimistically brought our road bikes to Mexico on the back of our car, hoping to continue our healthy habit and explore Mexico on two wheels. 

Trying to Find a Safe Place to Ride

I knew we were coming to a city of 5 million, people and despite researching online, I couldn’t find any active road cycling clubs, or even decent rides, on our favorite cycling route app, MapMyRide. Nonetheless, every night during the drive to Mexico we dutifully took them off the car and took them into the hotel rooms, and now the bikes live in the guest room of our house in Tlaquepaque.

But they don’t see the road much, and neither do we.

The roads in Tlaquepaque are rough, narrow, virtually unsigned, and often chaotic. We’ve only driven the car four times in the four months we’ve been here because of the challenge of the roads. There are virtually no bike lanes in our section of Guadalajara. However, the city does have what is called “Via RecreActiva” on Sundays and holidays, where they shut down several major roads for recreational purposes for six hours. We’ve come to accept that as the best we can do.

Thank God for the Via RecreActiva

So every Sunday morning, we pull on our cycling clothes, pump up our tires, fill our water bottles, and hit the Via RecreActiva. To get there, we have to ride almost two miles on a busy street with no bike lanes, Avenida Rio Nilo. Bob has almost been “doored” by cars several times, Lisa was almost run off the road by an aggressive bus driver, and almost rear-ended a cab that pulled in right in front of her t collect a passenger. But it is what it is. Rio Nilo gets us to the Via RecreActiva, and then we get to ride for one day a week.

If you can call it riding.

There are essentially two main problems with Via RecreActiva. First, literally thousands of people take advantage of it –unleashed dogs chasing each other back and forth, kids learning to ride their bikes, teenagers doing tricks and popping wheelies, old ladies pulling carts crossing the street at a mercado, boyfriends on bikes teaching their wobbly girlfriends how to skateboard,  and people just walking three or four 4 abreast. It is just plain crowded and you have to be extremely vigilant to avoid running into someone. Lisa calls it “Obstacle Cycling.”

The other main problem is traffic on the cross streets. While your road is closed for a few hours, other roads aren’t, so you have to stop at multiple lights and wait for traffic. This means that you only get to ride several blocks before you are forced to stop so that cross traffic can go.

It is better than nothing, but it is not for the faint of heart!

Trying to Find Other Riders

We have tried to make contact with other cyclists in Expat forums here, but didn’t get anything really solid from those groups. We have also seen cyclists riding on the sides of highways outside of the city, usually followed by a sag wagon. But at this point we are leaving Guadalajara soon, so we don’t plan to pursue that option.

We hope to find better cycling in our next stop, Guanajuato. Lisa has already found a few promising routes on MapMyRide!

Enjoy a video of the Via RecreActiva here! 

Driving Our Car in Mexico, Part 2

Because it took us a few weeks to start our Visa processing, the first thing we did after our first trip to Immigration in Guadalajara was to go to the tax office to get our TIP expiration date extended. Unfortunately, no one at the Immigration office seemed to know what we were talking about, so we showed them the paper they gave us at the border. They directed us to a SAT (Servicio de Administracion Tributaria, or Tax) office in Guadalajara.

SAT #1: Guadalajara

We Ubered there an eventually found someone who spoke enough English, who told us we were at the wrong SAT office and that we needed to go to another one even farther away, in the far northeast neighborhood of Zapopan.

SAT #2: Zapopan

We went there, once again found someone who spoke English, who told us we were at the wrong office and that instead of SAT, we needed to go the Customs Office at the Guadalajara airport, south of the city. It was getting late so we decided that I would do that another day.

SAT #3: Guadalajara Airport

Two days later I made the trip to the Guadalajara Airport, not knowing exactly where I needed to go. As I Ubered into the airport I saw a big gate with a SAT sign, but continued on to a Customs Office address I had found online. No one there seemed to know what I was trying to do. I proceeded to walk to the SAT sign, and was shown to an office where they seemed to only be mildly confused as to what I was trying to do. There was no English spoken. Eventually, I filled out some forms I didn’t understand, gave them copies of my TIP and passport, and received a date-stamped form. I was expecting another official looking TIP, but I didn’t get that, so now we have the expired TIP and a stamped form with no expiration date.

I was told online that I needed to go back to the same office once we finally got our Residente Temporal cards, so I returned with the green card, expecting to get a more official document. The people at the office looked at me like I was crazy. They initially told me that I didn’t need anything new, but eventually had me fill out the same forms and gave me a new stamped form. Again, no expiration.

Crossed Fingers!

We can only hope that we’ll get our $400 deposit back when we cross back over the border into the United States with the truck this summer.

Driving Our Car in Mexico, Part 1

Since we were moving to Mexico with three people, three cats and three musical instruments, we wanted to take our Toyota Tacoma with us. Many people just hop on a plane with a couple of suitcases, but we needed more space. So before we left Colorado, we ordered a topper for the back of our 2012 Toyota Tacoma. When an accident totaled the truck, we replaced it with a newer model that still fit the topper.

The car and all the stuff.

Car Rules in Mexico

There are strict rules surrounding the importation of vehicles into Mexico. You’re OK if you only plan to take a vehicle within Mexico’s Free Zone (Baja peninsula, large parts of Sonora and up to 20-26 kilometers from the border). However, if you want to go further than that, you need to get a Temporary Import Permit(TIP). You can get this online or at the Banjercito at the border crossing.

Unfortunately, due to a long delay in getting a title from Colorado for the new truck, we didn’t have the title or registration when we left. We eventually got the title, but we needed to have some physical presence back in CO to get the registration document. So we changed plans. Since we were going to be spending time at one of our vacation homes in Ludlow, VT, before heading to Mexico, we decided to register the truck in Vermont, expecting to get the plates and registration on the spot. It didn’t happen that way. Vermont took our Colorado title away and told us that they would mail the new registration and title. Unfortunately for us, they entered an incorrect address into their system and these two documents ended up floating around the Postal System for a long time. So we were forced to drive to the Mexican border with a handwritten registration application from Vermont and hope for the best.

Turned Away at the Border

Alas, Mexican authorities wouldn’t let us enter with the truck without a permanent Vermont registration. We turned around and frantically called the Vermont DMV, trying to get a copy of the registration that had never arrived. After getting a couple of robotic bureaucrats who offered no assistance and told us they could not help, we were fortunate to reach a helpful woman who told us that our registration had been returned. She offered to FedEx a replacement to us that day. We therefore spent an additional two days in Laredo, Texas, navigating this paperwork before heading back to the Banjercito.

Trying Again

At the Banjercito, they remembered us and quickly processed our paperwork. The cost ended up being about $1,150 MX pesos (about $40 US) for the permit processing and another $7,800 MX pesos (about $400 US) for a deposit, which we should get back when we return the Temporary Import Permit (TIP) sticker upon crossing the border back into the U.S. We were told that our TIP was tied to our Immigration permit, so it expired in 30 days. This meant that we would have to get our TIP renewed when we got our Visas processed.

Bob putting the temporary sticker on the truck

We also had to get Mexican insurance for the truck, as American insurers don’t insure vehicles in Mexico. We got ours through Sanborn’s, and canceled our US car insurance.

To be continued ...

Learning Spanish in Guadalajara, Part 2

There didn’t seem to be a lot of structure at Guadalajara Language Center, but somehow it worked.!

We weren’t given books, the instructors had some notes and only occasionally referred to a book they had. It seemed that there was some coordination between the morning and afternoon instructors, but only in an overlap of general concepts. It wasn’t a direct continuation of what had been previously taught. Each week we could be in class with different people, so some weeks we were ahead of the other people in the class and others we were slightly behind. You wouldn’t expect it, but for some reason this organization worked. After a while, since we were there so long, it seemed like we progressed and other students were shoehorned into our classes.

Excellent instructors

I thought the instructors were very good. Classes combined grammar with conversation, and content was flexible, sparked by what we did last night, our weekend plans, the weather, Mexican traditions. Sometimes there was a lesson on a specific subject, such as the simple past tense or personal pronouns. But other days, the class might consist almost entirely of free-form conversation, during which we learned a lot about the history and culture of Mexico.

For most of our time at Guadalajara Language Center, we had Monica for a teacher in the morning and Edith in the afternoon. Monica was a raucous, loud, animated woman and an outstanding teacher. She was the kind of woman you would want to hang out with at a party. Edith was tall and refined, more reserved, but eventually revealed a wicked sense of humor. 

 

Monica explaining pronouns

Edith watching a lively discussion

After four hours of Spanish every day, we were pretty tired. Many other people who came down for two or three weeks spent additional time studying, but we knew we had eight weeks of classes, so we didn’t feel like we had to jam everything in. Besides, we wanted to also experience GDL and TLQ. In fact, at the end of the first four weeks, we felt like we needed some time to review everything we had learned so we took a week off.  Lex, on the other hand, liked the school so much that she continued for the full eight weeks, and then did two hours a day for three more.

Lex in class

Lots of work left to do

Our official studies have ended. We’ve been exposed to the grammar basics and have certainly expanded our vocabulary. We can get by. We can understand the basics when speaking with Mexicans who speak clearly and not too fast. We can have conversations with Uber drivers and market people. But we know we have a lot more work to do. The Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute’s School of Language Studies says that to obtain a Professional Working Proficiency (Speaking-3/Reading-3 on a scale of 1 - 5) takes anywhere between 600-750 hours of classroom study. We have spent 160 hours in class so far. Granted, we did come in with some basics, but probably at best we’re 1/3 of the way to where we want to be. We know what areas we need to address, and we have found other resources to continue our study independently.

Our plan is to continue studying on our own and supplement that with several sessions of conversation each week with private Spanish tutors. As they say here in Mexico, “poco a poco” -- or little by little!

All in all, we enjoyed our time at the school and found it worthwhile. At some point in time, we will probably take some time to go back to school, perhaps doing the monthlong summer program at the University of Guanajuato, but not this year!

Learning Spanish in Guadalajara, Part 1

Our first priority in starting our life in Mexico was to learn the Spanish language. If we are going to spend the next few years living in countries where Spanish is the primary language spoken, we felt we needed to get a good grasp of the language early on.

And while we had lived in Puerto Rico for a time in the mid-90s and were not Spanish beginners, we knew that we had a long way to go before we would feel comfortable with the language. We want to obtain a level of proficiency so that we can develop friendships and truly feel part of Mexico (and other Spanish speaking countries we choose to live in or visit).  Knowing the language is also important logistically, to allow us to navigate daily tasks such as asking where a bathroom is and understand the answer, being able to order food at a street “puesto” or in a restaurant, asking for directions, buying groceries, paying for items at stores, going to the doctor’s office, and more.

Before we left the United States, we both studied Spanish independently, using books we still had around, a CD series and an app called Duolingo, and we decided to immerse ourselves in learning the language as soon as we arrived in Mexico. We chose to attend a language school in Guadalajara (GDL), Mexico’s second largest city, in the central region of Mexico. Like most Americans, we had never been to the region, spending our previous trips on Mexican coasts for beach vacations. This would give us an opportunity to begin our learning process while exploring a new area.

Guadalajara Language Center

We chose the Guadalajara Language Center (GLC), which is actually located in Tlaquepaque, a town at the southern edge of Guadalajara known for its pottery and ceramics. In fact, our apartment is less than quarter-mile from the city boundary and we routinely run in GDL. The school offered several language programs, including an advertised CLEP prep class, Lexie could take and get college credit for. We signed up for the immersion program, where we would take 4 hours a day of classes for 8 weeks, Monday through Friday. We took written placement exams and were a bit surprised that we all tested higher than expected.

Once we arrived in Tlaquepaque, Lisa and I were ready to go first thing Monday morning, while Lex decided to take a week off to recover from the long trip from the east coast of the United States before starting. The location of our apartment was perfect, just a seven-minute walk from the school. Daily classes ran from 9 -11 AM and then 11:30 AM-1:30 PM, after which we walked about 3 minutes to the Tlaquepaque main square to choose from the food trucks and local eateries.

The school, run by an easygoing Dutchman named Wouter Stout who is married to a Mexican woman, is located in an unassuming two-story blue building on a street corner just two blocks from the Centro Historico. It contains five small classrooms, a little kitchen for brewing coffee each day for grateful students, a large hallway with a couple of computers for students’ use, and a larger gathering room with a couple of couches and chairs, and Wouter’s desk in a corner.

Wouter and his dog, Estrella

Every week a new group of students arrives from all over the world, though they seem to be clustered on the California coastline and western Canada, probably because of easy flights to Guadalajara. Some stay for only a week or two, some for the winter, so new placements need to be made every week, and the first thing Wouter does on Mondays is assign students to classes based on their tests and hope for the best. If it’s not a fit, changes can be made after the first session on Monday. In the mornings we had one instructor and in the afternoon a different instructor. Wouter also provides resources for doing other activities to help discover the area, including organizing a weekly hike into the Barranca (canyon), and providing students with info about Lucha Libre, salsa and bachata dance lessons, a walking tour of Tlaquepaque, and more.

Lex with the GLC resident dog, Estrella (Star)

Ay, Caramba!

Our first day was rough. We were placed together, which was fortunate, but in too high a level for our comprehension skills, and Spanish words just flew over our heads. Fortunately, during the break adjustments were made, and we were placed in an appropriate level class and could get down to the business of learning.

Interesting Classmates

During our eight weeks taking classes, we usually had just one other person in our class, and at most a total of four. Since we often shared stories from our lives in Spanish conversations, we got to know some of those people fairly well. Everyone had an interesting story as to why they were there. Aaron, from Napa Valley, was our classmate for several weeks. He worked for a small vineyard and wanted to be able to communicate better with the Mexican workers when he traveled. He also had financial incentive from his company, so he immersed himself in and out of class, living in a homestay so he could speak with his hosts in Spanish and enjoy home-cooked Mexican meals. Shireen, from Boulder, CO, spent winters in an RV with her partner in a small beach community called Guayabita on the west coast of Mexico. Jack, a gay librarian from Vancouver, talked about the drag shows he attended at home and the Mexican friends he partied with in Tlaquepaque. Eva was a retired English teacher who spent several weeks in Mexico. David worked on a boat that took people on National Geographic eco-tours from Alaska to South America. Francine, originally from Iran, was a scientist-engineer studying Spanish between jobs. We met retirees and backpackers, and a young Catholic couple with seven kids who were starting life as missionaries in Ecuador.

Our buddy Eva

Find out more about our Spanish learning experience in Part 2!

Getting Our Mexican Temporary Resident (Residente Temporal) Visas – Part 2

Due to the gas crisis that was occurring in Mexico when we arrived, we were delayed in the city of Leon for a week before finally arriving in Guadalajara. Then we wanted to jump right in to language school, so it was almost 3 weeks before we finally made it into the immigration office in Guadalajara.

Step 3: Visit the Immigration Office in Mexico

We found the Mexican Immigration page online, downloaded the in-country immigration forms we needed, and filled them out. We dutifully made copies of our passports and had more passport photos taken at a (rather pricey) photo studio in Tlaquepaque. We then arrived at the Immigration office a few minutes before it opened and showed the greeting staff the forms. They gave us a ticket and showed us where to sit. We were quickly called up to a window and showed the woman our paperwork (no English spoken there). She didn’t like my paperwork since, as I had been warned at the Mexican Consulate in Denver, I needed to use my full and complete name for everything. (Lisa, who had filled out the online forms, had not been aware of this.) I was sent to a computer kiosk to refill it, not a pleasant experience, as everything was in Spanish and a line was forming behind me. Nonetheless, I was eventually successful. Lisa joined me in the line to redo hers for another picky reason.

Back at the window, we were given another document that we needed to immediately take to a bank, where we would pay approximately $200 each, obtain a receipt, and return to Immigration.

Step 4: Pay the Fee at a Local Bank

We walked a few blocks to find a bank, took a number, and sat in the waiting area. Mexico is basically a cash society, so people go to banks with cash to pay their bills – water, electric, cable, phone, and, in our case, Immigration payments. There’s almost always people waiting in the chairs. When our number was called, we went to the window and showed the form we were given. The Immigration woman told us that the receipt we got from the bank had to have our names EXACTLY as they were on our passports. The bank’s system wouldn’t allow the hyphen in Lisa’s last name (Hamm-Greenawalt), so she is Lisa Hamm Greenawalt in Mexico.

Step 5: Back to Immigration

Returning to the Immigration office, we waited until the woman who had previously helped us was available, and gave her our receipt. She took that, along with our copies and the Immigration permit we got at the border, and told us that we would get an emailed approval in one or two weeks.

Lisa and Lexie got their emails in a week. We emailed it to Lisa’s Mexican friend in Evergreen, Gabriela, to confirm that the dense legalistic language in Spanish said we were approved. She said yes!

But mine didn’t arrive until a week later, causing a bit of anxiety. We were each given an official Mexican identification number called a NUT, for Numero Unico de Tramite.

But we weren’t finished.

Step 6: Photos and Fingerprints

We now had to go back to the Immigration office again to get our fingerprints taken and give them photos, since they deemed that photos we had submitted earlier in the process were slightly too big. So we got a new set of photos taken (in the designated “infantil” size), and scheduled to take another morning off from language school to finish the process.

We again arrived at Immigration right before it opened, got our tickets and were shown to a different set of seats. Lisa went to one window and Lexie and I ended up going to another. They accepted Lisa’s photos and took her fingerprints, giving her one small napkin to get the purple ink off her fingertips. They also accepted Lexie’s photos, but not mine. They said the white background, which looked pale gray, was too dark and I needed to get new photos again.

First we went to the bathrooms to try to scrub the fingerprint ink off our fingers! In the Men’s Room, a man sprayed my hands with some solution and gave me paper towels, so I was fairly successful. Lisa and Lexie didn’t get the same treatment in the Women’s Room so they had to work harder, and Lexie’s fingerprints were purple for a day or two.

Then we went in search of a nearby place to get photos taken, found one a couple blocks away, and went back to the Immigration office with the new pictures. Success!

 Then they told us to come back in a week for our Temporary Resident (Green) cards.

Step 7: Temporary residents!

A week later we went back to the Immigration office a third time. Once again, very efficiently, we got our numbers, got called to the final issue and signed for our Green Cards.

Finally, six months after the first visit to the Denver Consulate and 6 weeks after we crossed the border, we held our Mexican Green Cards in our hot little hands! We were officially Temporary Residents of Mexico.

 

Celebrating the success of the process and our new status as temporary Mexican residents!

Getting Our Mexican Temporary Resident (Residente Temporal) Visas – Part I

Whether you realize it or not, every time you visit Mexico you’re required to have a Visitor’s Permit or a Visa. Most people get a Visitor’s Permit, which is the form you fill out on the plane. Included in your ticket price is the $25 fee for this permit, which is valid for 180 days.

Since we planned on staying in Mexico for longer than 180 days, we had to obtain a Visa. We applied for a Temporary Resident (Residente Temporal) visa, which would allow us to stay in Mexico for 1 year (renewal for up to 4 years) and allow us to import our car (a blog post on that at a later time). This Visa requires that we meet certain asset/income requirements: have monthly income equal to 300 days of the Mexican minimum wage or $30,804MX or savings/investments equal to 5,000 days worth of the minimum wage or $513,400MX. The deciding factor for us was that because we wanted to import our car, because we were bringing the cats with us. So we decided on the Temporary Resident Visa instead of the Permanent Resident Visa, which would not allow us to import our car.  

This ended up being a 7-step process for us.

Step 1: Denver

We started in the Mexican Consulate in Denver. We knew that once we the Visa was issued, we would have to cross into Mexico within 6 months. Since we knew that we would be traveling for several months, and to allow for any unforeseen issues, we thought that getting the Visas in August would be good for our planned January entry to Mexico. I had read about other people merely walking into consulates to start the process. Therefore, about a week before I wanted to go to the consulate, I went to check on the consulate hours so we could get there first thing in the morning. To my complete surprise, I discovered the Mexican Consulate in Denver only processed Visa applications by appointment. To make matters worse, they only had 3 available slots in mid-September, very close to when we were planning to leave Denver. They weren’t together, but we grabbed them, signing up online and printing the forms we needed for our appointments.

Lexie and I had our appointments on the same day. It was a bit of a culture shock at the consulate, as everyone spoke Spanish and we didn’t (yet). We were shown some chairs to sit in and watched the very orderly process of Mexicans taking care of their business at multiple bank teller-like windows. A woman came out and took Lexie and me into a back room. She couldn’t find my appointment and subsequently taught me a very valuable lesson – I needed to include my full name on everything Mexican. That includes my middle name, Keefer, and my suffix, III. She took my financial verification data and sent us back out to pay our $36 Visa fees while she found my appointment and verified the info I had given her. Because I had given my full name on the online form, she needed to create a completely new appointment with the full information. This made the process take longer than it should have. She was extraordinarily nice, and fortunately spoke English. We got our mug-shot photos taken and signed some unknown forms, then called back into the office 20 or so minutes later and given back our passports, which now had the Visas in them.

Lisa went to the consulate 10 days later and came home with her Visa. (Note that different Consulates have different procedures and requirements than what we experienced in Denver. Check your local Consulate!)

Step 2: Border Crossing

The second step of our process came when we crossed the border into Mexico in January. We knew we couldn’t get the normal tourist permit, which would invalidate our Visa. Therefore, we very carefully showed our Visas and made sure that our immigration form was marked accurately, giving us 30 days to visit the Immigration office in Guadalajara.

Lexie filling out her paperwork

This is the form we needed to have marked correctly

Next ... Part 2, The Mexican part!

Guachimontones – the Round Ruins

Today we visited Guachimontones, one of only circular ruins in the world.

You’ve most likely heard of Tulum and Chichen Itza, but Guachimontones is unique and surely the most interesting place you’ve never heard of! Located just an hour outside Guadalajara, this prehispanic archeological site made for a wonderful day trip.

We dug out our hiking floppy hats and slathered on sunscreen, because we knew it would be an active day spent outside on a mountain top in relentless sun. Even so, since we got an early start, the weather was surprisingly pleasant.

We paid just 590 pesos apiece ($30) (plus lunch and tips) to be picked up at our home in Tlaquepaque and driven more than an hour northwest of the city, far into the countryside to the village of Teuchitlan, to experience the ruins and learn some history during a free guided tour (both Spanish and English versions are available).

We ended up getting a private tour because the bus was full, an added bonus! Our driver, Hector, spoke English well but agreed to speak Spanish during the ride up to help us practice.

When we arrived, after driving through the village of Teuchitlan (where Hector said the main industry is sugar cane), we walked up to the Visitors Center and watched a short video in English that described Guachimontones. We learned that the site was constructed between 350 BC and 350 AD and served as the base for what is called the Teuchitlan tradition. The population reached about 40,000 people at its peak.

The people of the time, perceived through their own works

Beto shows us a social scene

We then set off with a guide named Ivan (and about 30 other people) to hike a quarter mile up a steep cobblestone road to the sacred grounds on the hilltop. There we found a series of temples built in concentric, stepped circular pyramids, each surrounded by a moat-like grass “patio,” which in turn was surrounded by about eight lower temple-like structures. The hill continued climbing, with more Guachimontones farther up.

Since we had chosen to take the Spanish tour instead of waiting an hour or two for the English one, we were a little at a loss to understand everything. Ivan said the central circular structure (the Guachi) is where the priests go, as well as people dressed in bird costumes, to appeal to the gods. , but we got to experience the music that they play during rituals (Bob was chosen as one of the musicians, with a drum that looked like a tambourine), learn a little bit of a dance, and climb to the top of an unexcavated “Guachi.”

There were also a number of ball fields where warriors competed with balls made out of animal skins, hitting them with their hips and shoulders Winners had the honor of having their skin cut open and pieces of precious black obsidian inserted inside, while losers could have their fingers or hands cut off.  The “Messi” or “Ronaldo” (if you follow soccer) of the Teuchitlan world might have raised bumps of obsidian all up and down his arms! (We also learned that they wore little and woman tattooed their breasts, but that’s a story for another day.)

This ancient civilization thrived for about 700 years before being presumably wiped out by the Tequila volcano in about 350 A.D. The museum in the Visitors Center displayed incredible murals depicting life and events of the time, including the tragic volcano.

This picture from the Visitors center depicts the volcano

After the tour, which included some independent exploration, we headed with our driver Hector to the village by the lake below, where we dined in a lovely lakeside restaurant called Monte Carlo (the most expensive place we have eaten in Mexico, though lunch and drinks still came to only about $25).

Learn more about Guachimontones here.