The Mural Trail

I arrive in Guadalajara, Jalisco, "by accident".



It is the closest big city inland from Puerto Vallarta, where I found myself beached after Yelapa. I figured I could get the bus there and look at information on the way, and by the time I got to Guadalajara I would know where I wanted to go and get on the next bus out.

I was giving my decision-making powers a lot more faith than they deserved, for by the time I am cast out from the tinted glass box of the coach, I am with no more direction than I was back in November, stuck in Mexico City.
It is getting dark. I take myself into the city centre because I don't know where else to go.

By the time I find the Hostelito Inn, my roots have already started penetrating the concrete.

I've avoided cities up until now. While I obviously have the capacity to love them at the right moment - having lived in London for 6 years it would be strange to say I didn't - I do feel stunted surrounded by all the concrete and commercialism. I can't help thinking that none of it is real. After so long living in the freedom of the flow and the balance of interaction, I am disorientated by so many closed people, determinedly on their own missions. I feel my soul can only really put out its feelers when surrounded by natural beauty.

But in this moment, this city seems different, somehow. With 4 million people, it is second in Mexico only to el D.F. The numbers are daunting but the centre is small, old, and throbbing with a colourful pulse of art, splayed decadently over the entirety of the old town.

I am greeted to the Hostelito by a friendly Beagle called Brandy, who takes her time sniffing every part of myself and my belongings before settling herself down on my lap. The owner, Frank, tells me "my missis is from Manchester, innit. Come to the terrace for a drink, sister."


So I do.

Two weeks later and I'm still here in this beautiful oasis. Part of the family, you might say. I've taught Frank and his other half, Tracey, how to hula hoop. I've entertained their son, Jack. I've fallen out and made up with Brandy a number of times. I've had the dorm to myself, the cafe next door for hooping, the sound system to rig up tunes, and a city to explore.

And no pressure because I hadn't even expected to be here.


I have hours to wander tiny streets lined with orange trees, or spend bemused at the sheer number of shoe shops. Synchronicities tell me to stay, the first of which is the mural trail.

On my first wander I am sucked into the open door of the Palacio del Gobierno, where I find a huge, red mural, leering down on me with freedom fighters, justice, and death. The Mexican saviour, Padre Hidalgo, rages from the centre. I stop on the stairs until my neck cricks. I am overwhelmed. It is just so, well, imposing.

I remember reading somewhere that Mexico is famous for its murals. This provides some indication why.


An hour or so later, I uncharacteristically wander into a museum after a man on the street tells me I should go. I am confused - there does not seem to be anything in the museum; just courtyard after sunny white courtyard, boxed with locked wooden doors and a path that leads to nowhere. I wonder if anyone else understands this place; whether I am the only one who is still trying the doors even after half an hour of systematic failure.

Perhaps the purpose of the museum is to make one appreciate the simple things - the punch of an orange tree in a still courtyard; the shock of sunlight on a whitewashed wall.

The only thing I find in this warren is a mural. The second mural by the same artist - José Clemente Orozco. It screams over several panels and domed ceiling vaults. Supposedly it deals with the interplay between external forces and the indigenous peoples of modern-day Mexico. It is like a war above me; reds and blacks and all the fire of a deep flowing blood, with a burning man as centrepiece in what has become known as 'The Cistine Chapel of Mexico'.


I lie on my back on a bench to consider. Rather than the expected 'good/bad' eternal symbolism, it looks like the artist sees the ugliness in everyone he paints and intends to illustrate them all as equals, warring in the dirt.

Half people, half machines menace the arches above me, quite out of place surrounded by the mysteriously still squares of cobbles visible through the open doors.


Apparently Orozco painted three in this city. Now that I have accidentally seen two, it would be interesting to see the third to complete the set (I ponder). I am in no hurry to find it, but the next day I go to the university to ask about Spanish classes (the romantic in me wanting to be a real student, just for a week). On the way back I see a big, white dome, ornately beckoning me. Impulsively, I cross the street and walk confidently past the security guard.

I enter to find an empty lecture hall and the third mural.


Three murals. Two days. No effort. So I look up the artist. "Through his art Orozco shared his trauma and his anger, which he insisted over and over, in many forms, is our trauma and should be our anger," I read. He attacked, in the words of his own political metaphor, "the pestilential shadows of closed rooms."

In other words, he worked to expose the truth, away from the ego that attempts to label things 'good' and 'bad.' Apparently, this is the key. To see, without attaching the labels of opinion.

I decide against studying Spanish. Instead, I am handed another challenge.