If visitors to Guadalajara can be enticed to leave the city for a day, you can be sure they will head either to Tequila or to Teuchitlán – or to both.
On their way, they will speed right past the town of El Arenal, never suspecting that when it comes to the origins of tequila, this little pueblo has far more to offer than the town of the same name, and as for the ruins of the great civilization that built the guachimontones (circular pyramids) two millennia ago, modest Arenal may have been at its very hub.
Why then do tourists go all the way to Tequila and Teuchitlán when they can see “the real thing” in or near Arenal, located a mere 30 kilometers from Guadalajara? This question I put to myself after spending a day exploring the agave-covered hills of Santa Quiteria with Dario Chavira, director of El Arenal’s Calavera Museum.
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