Lakeside by Lake Chapala, with all sorts of foreigners

For ten days now, we've been in the Lake Chapala area, in the little town of San Antonio Tlayacapan. We're in the smallest RV park we've encountered yet: it has two sites. More about it later when we have some photos.

Right now, I want to start describing the "Lakeside" scene. Picture a series of towns strung along a very large lake with a rather busy highway between them all. Kelly and I were here close to 30 years ago, and I remember being charmed by one of the villages, Ajijic. Now my feelings are more mixed, as Ajijic is now a town of at least 10,000 and many of them are Americans, Canadians, and other foreigners. Real estate prices are high. Everywhere you go, you hear English being spoken. All this takes some getting used to.

We're here to spend time with some good friends from the US who are adopting a baby. I spent much of Christmas evening with the infant cuddled up asleep in my lap, and it was great! We're also here because of Kelly's dental quest to have some implants done. He's in nearby Guadalajara as I write, and I'll report more on Mexican dentistry later. It's been fun to experience some of the many facets of Christmas in Mexico. Here's a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, decorated for the holidays. This is in a yard in our neighborhood.


Being here for a while, we've been taking lots of walks and wondering if this is an area we'd want to spend more time in. There are some nice things. For one thing, I adore lakes. For another, even though the foreigners can be annoying, there are some interesting things about the mix of the two cultures. The Lake Chapala Society, with beautiful gardens, offers many services and progams in English.

Today I met a delightful couple from the American Midwest who have traveled all over the US, Canada, and Mexico -- and have settled down here in San Antonio Tlay. (as it's abbreviated). They are my kind of foreigners, with a lot of appreciation for the warmth and other good qualities of the Mexican people. They did have a couple of stories about the kind of people that make me want to leave the region pronto:

Once they were enthusiastically telling another American here about a great time that they had spontaneously connecting with some Mexicans, when the other person put a damper on the conversation by saying, "We don't do the Mexican thing. We're here because it's cheap."

Another time, a woman in an RV caravan said to them, "Well! You'd think if the Mexicans wanted to sell to Americans, they would learn the language!"

Well! You'd think if Americans wanted to live in Mexico, we'd make an effort to learn the culture and at least some of the language. Seems obvious to me. But it takes all sorts...