We woke up on the side of Tequila Volcano, having slept really well in the cool mountain air.  We took our time getting packed up for the day, knowing we had only a short drive into town.  The morning in Tequila was spent looking after a few chores; we filled up our water tank with agua purificada, we spent an hour in the laundromat (clean clothes!!!!), and looked for a place to park the truck and camper for the evening.  We were planning on sampling some tequila, actually a lot of tequila, and we didn’t want to have to move the truck later.  We asked at one hotel with courtyard parking if we could camp there, but they were going to be full for the night and didn’t have room for us.   We asked about the safety of camping on the streets, and were assured that it was perfectly safe.  We ended up parking the truck on a dead end street surrounded by nice homes, and headed out for the day.

The main plaza.

Inside Parroquia Santiago Apóstol, the church in the main square, build in the 1600s.

We found out during the day that there was a very important fiesta that evening. Decorations were all over town.

The town of Tequila is beautiful; cobblestone streets, flowering trees and colourful buildings.  And you can get free samples of Tequila in the stores that represent the different distilleries in the region.  Now, if the only tequila you have ever tasted is the stuff you shoot in a bar with salt and lime, you really have not tasted tequila.  We sampled several different varieties, all of them having their own characteristics…smoky, fruity, woodsy, leathery, sweet, chocolatey, flowery….The different flavours are a result of the soil the agave plant is grown in, the variety of agave plant, length and type of aging process, and what type of barrel they have been stored in, if at all.

We wandered around in the area of the the plaza, ate street tacos, sampled more tequilas, sat and people watched.  Later we discovered a bar called La Cata that specializes in 100% Agave tequilas, and decided to go in.  We were greeted by Clayton, originally from Oregon and a part owner of the bar, and decided to have him walk us through a “tasting flight” of tequila.  He helped us choose three tequilas, then taught us the proper way to taste tequila (there are multiple steps to the proper method of tasting tequila not unlike wine or whiskey – who knew I’ve been doing it all wrong all these years!), and then talked about the different flavours that we would experience as we worked our way through the three glasses.  It was a great learning experience and we were able to taste some very fine tequila in the process.

The bar at La Cata.

That evening we wandered up the main street of Tequila to a fair that was going on, which was nothing like I had expected.  I was thinking Stampede fairgrounds, with games and rides, but instead it was a lot of drinking tents and loud music and we decided to head back to the plaza.

At the plaza priests were giving talks on a raised platform, and centre stage there was a cross rising majestically out of a blue agave plant.  Later, in front of the church, we witnessed a long fireworks display.  At one point, the image of the Virgin Mary was lit up in sparklers and rotated around and around, while fireworks blasted into the night sky. The whole contraption was easily 35 feet tall 12 feet across, just feet from the gathered crowd.  The entire time, different music from several different locations in the plaza competed for your attention and children played on small carnival rides.

Setting up the fireworks display for later in the evening.

We headed back to the camper after a very long, very fun day.  Weekends are noisy places in Mexican towns, but throw a fiesta into the mix and you can be assured that music and fireworks will be heard long into the night.  We awoke at 5 am to what sounded like canons being fired several times, maybe to mark the start of the final day of the fiesta or the end of the previous day??  We are not sure, but we had been told stories about canons being fired in the early hours before daylight in other towns around this time of year, so we think it has something to do with the celebration.

We loved the town of Tequila.  Piper, however, was not so enthralled…fireworks and canons are high up on her short list of things she hates, along with zucchini, fasting and the taste of saltwater.