Sunday, April 27, 2008

Guadalajara buses and demonstration

Richard took the bus into town. It was more or less slow and uncomfortable, but did get him near downtown. Traffic downtown was heavy, and it seemed faster to walk.

Richard walked to the main plaza, where he saw a demonstration against the Governor of Jalisco. The main complaint was his donation of 9 million dollars of state money to help fund a huge church devoted to the martyrs of the Cristero war era (1920-1935). The pope recently declared around twenty new Mexican saints from that era. Not surprisingly, lots of people think that this is not something that should be paid for by taxes. The Governor's justification is economic development through religious tourism. Seems like a stretch to me, especially since the separation of church and state is generally stricter in Mexico than in the USA. Also this week, the Governor used some bad language in public, which put fuel on the fire.

I chatted at some length with a couple of young men at the demonstration. They said that it was not led by any political party, but by several social organizations. One was an unemployed reporter, who left Mexico city due to conflicts with his family. The other was a university student of business, who seemed impressed when I mentioned my business and engineering degrees, as well as by my Spanish.


I headed over to the hotel to buy tickets to the concert, but got hung up in the march of demonstrators. When I got to the hotel, I found out that the concert was canceled. Then I walked back to catch the bus home, figuring that walking was as fast as riding the bus, given the traffic.

I got on the wrong bus. I was supposed to be on the 629-1 bus, but I ended up on the 629-2 bus, not realizing the difference. I got home, but the long way.

Taxis look a lot better to me right now, at least inside the city. We may take buses for longer distances, like two or three hour trips.

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