Arrival
Guadalajara's airport is some 17km southeast of the city on the road to Chapala. Facilities include money exchange and car rental, and there's also the usual system of fixed-price taxis and vans to get you downtown (around US$10 - vouchers are sold inside the terminal). A much cheaper bus service (every 15min 6am-9pm; US$1) also runs to and from the old bus station - the Camionera Vieja - from where you can hop on another bus, or walk, to the centre. Right out in the city's southeastern suburbs, Guadalajara's Central Camionera also known as the Camionera Nueva, is one of Mexico's newest and largest bus terminals, comprising seven buildings strung out in a wide arc, with its own shopping centre (Nueva Central Plaza) and hotel. Very broadly, each building serves a different area, but since they're organized by bus company rather than route, it's not quite that simple - there are buses to Mexico City from just about every building, for example. However, each has an extremely helpful information desk where staff will advise exactly which bus to take to get to where you're going, and can also book accommodation. Local bus #644 ("Centro"), and the slightly dearer turquoise TUR bus stop outside each terminal, most of them taking you to Av 16 de Septiembre, within walking distance of the cathedral if not right past it. The last city buses between the terminal and the centre are at around 10pm. Bus #275 from behind building 1 also runs to the centre until around 10.30pm. Some second-class buses from local destinations, including Tequila, Tapalpa, Ciudad Guzman and the villages on the shores of Lago de Chapala, as well as the airport service, use the Camionera Vieja , the old downtown terminal, surrounded by cheap hotels and only a short bus ride (#174) up Calzada Independencia from the centre. If you're coming from somewhere only an hour or two away, it can be worth the slightly less comfortable second-class journey for the convenience of this much more central point of arrival. The two camioneras are connected by unnumbered #616 bus. The train station , a couple of kilometres south of the centre at the bottom of Calzada Independencia, has not functioned as a commercial train station for the last five years. Instead, the line is used for the touristy Tequila Express.
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