Palma's Place

Guadalajara Trip (and Fall)

Hi all, I recently visited the wonderful city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico for business.  While completing a triangular tour of the state of Jalisco (see my trip to Melaque), I spent a week meeting with and interviewing electronics manufacturing executives.

I also received the chance to demonstrate my agility.  (in other words, I tripped over my size 12 EEEs, while going down a flight of stairs)  It was actually on the last tread of a flight of stairs.  Now, what made this incident worse, was that I was in the middle of an interview with one of these executives.  So much for coming off as insightful and as a trusted advisor.

I imagine the security video would be pretty fun to watch (I did not check to see if a camera covered the stairs).  From what I recall, I stepped down, my body began to turn to the left to take the turn on the landing to the next flight of stairs, and felt my foot begin to slide out.  Then I felt myself begin to fall.  I landed on my right shoulder and the twisting motion carried me on to my back.  Good so far, no face plant, no putting arms out to catch myself and a resulting broken wrist (like my sister a month or two ago :)  yes, the family gene pool is not big on agility).  But then I kind of bounced and put my head through the wall.

Now I know I can have a thick skull and and inflated ego, but this was too much.  Luckily, where I hit was only plasterboard, stuff you can punch your finger through, so no damage to me there.  Just a sprained ankle.  Once you see the pictures of the hole, you can understand why my hosts, including Mauricio pictured in one of the photos,  were concerned about brain damage, either that or the interview was not going to well.

My hosts were very nice, looked after me, eventually bringing their on-site doctor and medical team to the conference room to check me out for any possible concussion and to treat the ankle and otherwise make sure I was not more seriously hurt.  Thank you guys.  My hosts did not laugh out loud, at least in front of me (thank you), so I was left to wallow in my own embarrassment, hobble along in pain, and to spend the night in the hotel room with an improvised ice pack, watching the latest Harry Potter movie. 

Hopefully with these pictures, I can dispel the nasty rumors that it occurred at the hotel bar after several extra rounds of Tequila poppers or while during an inept attempt at the Mexican hat dance.

Anyways, by the next day I could walk without too much pain.  I carried on through the rest of the week of meetings and then on Friday afternoon went to one of the big malls in the central/historic district to search for huaraches in my size (unsuccessful).  On Saturday I walked through the historic town of Tlaquepaque , a suburb of Guadalajara, to appreciate the architecture, shoot some pictures, do some shopping for talvera ceramics, have a good lunch in the El Parian (a block-square, porticoed garden and former market with about a half dozen restaurants lining the patio).  While there, Urbe, a nice old man did a caricature drawing of me, which when I am feeling more confident, I may share with others.

All in all, I cannot wait to go back.  I want to further explore the historic district, check out Tonala, another old town, now a suburb of Guadalajara, and home to some of the best potters in Mexico.  Also to meet more people from this great town.