Elevation

Well its Monday once again so I am going to write a little about Guadalajara.
Today I am going to talk about the elevation of Guadalajara. According to Fodder's travel guide Guadalajara is 5,576 feet above sea level.
Here are a few other cities and their altitude so you can compare them.
Lubbock - 3,195 ft
Dallas - 463 ft
Denver - 5,280 ft
Mt Everest - 8,848 ft
New York - 33 ft
Anything about 3,500 ft is considered high altitude.
Ok, so you are thinking whats the big deal about the altitude, right?
Because visitors aren't accustomed to the altitude they can actually get sick while visiting. It is VERY important to drink a lot of liquids while in high altitude (preferably water). We are very big about stressing to all of our visitors that they drink a lot of water. So far, in the three years we have been here, we have only had two visitors get sick. One refused to drink water and the other one got sun burned really bad and maybe a little dehydrated. AIMers drink a lot of water when you are in Mexico City and you will have a much funner trip than if you don't! I promise.
The other thing about the altitude as I mentioned earlier is the sun. We are much closer to the sun and therefore need to be more careful about exposure to it.
The last thing is cooking. Water at sea level boils at 212 degrees F. But because of the change in atmospheric pressure the water boils at a much lower temperature. At our altitude water boils at 201 degrees F (for every 500 ft of elevation boiling point decreases one degree). Because the temperature is lower it takes longer to cook things. When a recipe states 30 minutes I usually expect it to take at least 40 minutes and am not surprised if it takes longer.
Well, that is kind of a boring fact but believe it or not I deal with it on a daily basis. Especially the cooking aspect of it. Hope it wasn't too boring. I wanted to mention it because we are about to have a large group of supporters visit and then we are going to Mexico City to see our AIMers so I was thinking about it. Drink lots of water when you are visiting us!