Opps... I Did It Again

Go to a Mexican Hospital That Is... 

So it wouldn't be a real trip to Mexico without a hospital stay, right?!?! On Valentine's Day night I was at the gym working hard in Pilates and all of a sudden I didn't feel so hot. So I left and came home. I had really bad indigestion so I took some Tums and went to bed. I got up shortly after that and went to the bathroom because I thought I was going to be sick. Then the next thing I remember is I woke up and had gotten sick all over. I went back to bed hoping that it was over. Then a couple hours later I got up again because I thought I was going to be sick again, I remember waking up but that's about it. I woke up on my bedroom floor with a small piece of my tooth in my mouth. I think I stood up out of bed and passed out... hitting my head on the corner of my desk and ping ponged my way down to the floor. Here you can't really see it, but I'll have a black eye in the next week because the knot of my eyebrow is SO huge!

It's hard to see the bump on my forehead right above my eyebrow... I was also trying to show my chipped tooth, but you can't really see that either. 

 

 

So after the second time I passed out, I knew I was REALLY sick. I passed out one more time that morning. But, by that point I couldn't keep water down so I made my appointment to the the private doctor. Once I got there he took a look at me and knew I had a bad stomach infection and I was super dehydrated. He put me in the wheel chair and took me up to the hospital part. I have never been so excited to be hooked up to an IV Bag... I was so thirsty!! After 4 bags and some antibiotics he came in and told me I had to stay the night... I didn't really care because there was a TV in the room so it's the most TV I've watched since moving down here to Mexico. The doctor was one of my students dad and he was AWESOME! So after another 2 or 3 bags I finally got to leave the next morning.

Happy to begin re-hydration!

 Thankfully I have Kady, she was so nice and didn't go to work on Wednesday so she could take me to the doctor... her perfect Spanish skills were much needed! She is the BEST! Then when I got to go home on Thursday Maribel (my HR lady) came to get me... thank goodness again because I would have never gotten out of there without her bilingual help. It sucked, but I feel SOOOO MUCH BETTER!!!

The worst part of it all was when I finally got home Thursday afternoon I was cleaning the sick out of my apartment and I found this: 

At first I ran away because I didn't know what to do, but then after thinking about it I considered how much it would suck if I had to go BACK to the hospital because I got stung by a scorpion. So I smashed it with Kady's shoe. Gross, right?!?!

I'm going to try to live a quiet normal life for a bit. Right now my Friday night is pretty exciting... I picked up my laundry and I put BUTTER on my toast. I'll rest right now because there is always next week ;)

¡Tequila!

To make sure I completely understand everything that comes from Mexico I thought it would be important to find out where tequila comes from and how it is made. My friends, Kady, Mel, Jenika, Jenna, and I went to Guadalajara to find out first hand how it goes down.

We got to Guadalajara after a little detour that added 4 hours on to our 4 hour drive. We arrived at our hostel at about 1:30am and after meeting a few new people we went to bed because we had a full day of tequila in the morning! We took the Tequila Express which is a two hour train ride to the tequila farm. It was open bar too... all day long!

Here we are before getting on the train. Kady, me, Guadalajara lady, Jenika, Mel and Jenna in front.

The Tequila Farm

Check out all that blue Agave

The whole process starts by digging out the blue agave and finding the heart from the mama than that is is re-planted. When it's all grown up they dig it up again and chop off the sides. They just want the inside... but not the very inside like the heart, they take that part out. Think of a pineapple... it's kind of like that.

Here is a video explaining how they get that little middle part out that they cannot use. 

After they get the part they need all ready it goes into the oven. It has to cook for 24 hours and then it cools for another 24 hours.

Just in case I am forgetting any part here it a diagram explaining how it all goes down. 

They are recycling friendly at this farm and they recycle the parts that they cannot use by grinding them up into small fibers.

Just so you get the whole experience they make sure you can take a cool picture with a donkey. Notice the 3 drinks I'm am talently holding.

Here is where they are distilling the tequila. They cannot make tequila less than 35% alcohol and they cannot export tequila from Mexico more than 40% alcohol.

Back in the day once they cooked all the agave they would bring it to this old part of the farm to squeeze out the juices. They would put all the agave in this pit and then roll that giant roller thing over it to squish out all the juice. They then would carry it in buckets to these whole chambers (see below) to let it ferment.

To make sure it get good and tequila-ly they would welcome any bacteria in there. To get it in there they would have the men that were out working all day (aka they were nice a sweaty) and they would jump in there to make it cook faster. ¡¡Huacala!!

 Then when it is all done cooking it's ready to be barreled. I learned some interesting facts:
* White tequila is crap tequila
* If it is labeled GOLD tequila it is crap tequila... it is white tequila with food coloring
* The reason tequila is gold is because it ages in the barrels and gets its color from the barrel
* The barrel is only good for 10 years

Interesting, right?!

Here are all the products that come from the El Jimador tequila farm 

So after a long day on the train and at the farm, we went back to the hostel. Turns out we had to do some acting... that's right after a full day of drinking they needed our help to shoot a commercial for the hostel. I did what I could and after a couple of takes we had a wrap. Don't worry when it's out of editing I will share it with you!! :) 


After that we decided to walk down the the Chapultepec Ave which was only a couple blocks away and there was a street market. It was really cool. I got a picture that is of a great big tree made out of sand and shells. I'll try to take a picture of it and put it on here next time too.

Me and Kady at the fountain.... I LOVE fountains!

The next morning we got up early to try and go bike riding. They shut down the main street in town so that people can go biking and running. They starting doing this so the town would go back to the community feel they once had. It was cool because not many shops were open and everyone seemed to be out and about. 

We were going to rent a bike and join in with the rest of the town but they were all rented out, so we walked around. We ended up finding a bus tour of the city and got on so we could get a good lay of the land. We saw a lot of cool bridges and fountains :)

 AND the Corona plant!

This church was really cool. On the tall pillar part on the left of the picture about mid way up there are two little doors. At noon every day the disciples come out and take a little lap... we missed it by a couple minutes. 


So that was my fast weekend trip to Guadalajara. I can't wait to go back! There is a lot more of the city to see! 


I don't have too much to report on these days because I'm trying to save money for my spring break trip to... PERU!! We are in the works of planning but we hope to fly into Boliva and go to Lake Titicaca then to Cuzco where we'll do the Inca Trail (a 4 day 3 night hike) up to Machu Picchu. After that I want to fly to Puerto Maldonado to go into the Amazon jungle for a couple days. So while my life might be boring now, it won't be in April!