Welcome to our Mexican Excursion

Or:

Pete & Gethy's big adventure

 

Lake Chapala is Mexico's largest natural lake, located 30 miles Southeast of Guadalajara, at about 20 degrees North latitude. The climate is close to ideal, as can be seen here. There are already thousands of ex-pats there, as you can see on the web site of the Lake Chapala Society. Many Europeans, Canadians and Americans retire to the area, but they don't just hang around waiting for death certificates. The ex-pats we met in the LCS, the shops and around the square were vibrant, busy and extremely active in the community.

The real estate market is currently just about as depressed as ours, and this happens to be an excellent time to buy or rent there. We stayed half-a-block from the central square in Ajijic, in a hotel called Mis Amores. Our room was nothing like the suite shown on the web site, but it was wonderful just the same, and the staff and services were outstanding. I would recommend Mis Amores to anyone.

There are a couple of towns here, Chapala is by far the larger of the two, Ajijic, (pronounced A-he-heek, with the accent on the heek), has more of a village feel with many small shops, vendors and a full-blown artist community. We would prefer to rent in an area called Florista, just to the East of Ajijic, and perhaps would buy somewhere near Chapala later on. Houses are cheaper just North of Chapala, but in the beginning, we would rather be close to LCS in Ajijic. I would say more, but Gethyn is anxious for me to publish this.

We didn't take a lot of pictures, as the web sites above have many shots of the town and surrounding area. We did take a few, though, and they are below. We will be making an effort to relocate to Lake Chapala, just when is not clear. We will sell this house as quickly as we can, in this market, and hope the other obstaclas will work themselves out over the next few months. We plan to rent a house, at least for a year, 'till we are comfortable enough with the area to know where we would like to buy. Also, there is the matter of selling our rental properties, as we must do so before we can buy down there.

Since I refer to him in one of the photographs, I should mention who James Tipton is. Every Sunday morning, LCS has a free lecture (in place of church) on some subject by some expert. The Sunday we were there, James Tipton, a well-known poet whose works have been translated into dozens of languages, discussed his latest works. I bought two of his books of short poetry, and am loving them. What you see in the picture is part of the audience of perhaps 250 ex-pats who showed up to hear him. Much good talk and fellowship both before and after the talk, with all of these liberals, from all over the world.

 

Well, here are some of the pictures we took:

Main Square and Bandstand in Ajijic	Tree carving in the square in Ajijic
Lakefront in Ajijic	Trees in the lake, Ajijic
Square in Ajijic	View from a bench, Ajijic (can you spot the cell tower on the hill)?
Street in front of our Hotel	Gethyn in front of Hotel
An Egret in a tree in Ajijic	Celebration in Ajijic
LCS back garden	LCS Gazebo
Old man in LCS	Street vendors in Ajijic
Part of the crowd to hear James Tipton at LCS	Garden outside our room at the Hotel
A house in Florista, the area in which we would like to rent	Another street scene near Florista
A view of the waterfront in Chapala	Same waterfront, other direction
Yet another view of the Chapala waterfront	Gethyn with realtor in Chapala
Square in Chapala, part of the market	View from a hilltop in one of the developments. Lake in distance
House in another neighborhood. Move in for 230K USD	Another shot of the beautiful Chapala waterfront
Another shot of the garden outside our room in our hotel	And the room, but this doesn't do it justice