A Lake Chapala town through a zestful visitor's eyes

Back in May, one of the readers of this blog came to the Lake Chapala area for the first time. Micki Wendt had a great time, and after she went (reluctantly) back to the US, she wrote up her impressions and sent them out to friends. I asked her permission to use her article here. It's long for a blog entry, so I gave it its own page on my website:

http://www.mexico-with-heart.com/lakechapala/lakesidevisitor.html

I think her article captures a lot about why people fall in love with this lakeside area and Mexico in general.

Moments in a Mexican day

This morning, I was on our front porch doing my stretches not long after daylight, watching the mountains across the lake disappear into clouds. The lake became misty and then was mostly lost from view. It wasn't raining at our place: our swimming pool was clear and still.

Suddenly I heard a dull steady sound, not tremendously loud. I just had time to think it might be rain approaching and then it was there, a wild downpour, the waters of the pool churning with the heavy drops. I don't know if I've ever heard rain approaching like that before!

A little later, I was jogging on my rebounder on the porch as the rain died down. A few rays of sunlight came in at an oblique angle and shone on a big lychee tree in our yard. I didn't notice the light on the leaves, where it didn't make them enough brighter to be marked, but on the trunk and branches they were dramatic.

It's been a good day. I've been working on a website pretty steadily all day, enjoying the natural beauty here when I took breaks. Kelly's been doing his usual rhythm of days at home, back and forth between computer and outdoor projects. I did some water aerobics in our pool late in the afternoon and my mind wandered to the book, The Power of Now. The title says it all. Today has had a lot of good now!

Tlaquepaque Remodel

When I went to Tlaquepaque recently, we were driven by Victor Cueto Valencia, a good friend of some of the women I went with. (He drives his van on custom trips as one of the businesses he is in, and he is a very good driver. His website is www.gdlmexicotours.com) Victor, who is from Tlaquepaque, took us by a project he's in the middle of: remodeling an historic old building which he owns. These shots are all taken in the interior of the building, including the courtyard. Let's start with Victor himself:
The courtyard shows work at various stages.

I was so impressed with the way the workman carried the bricks up the ladder that I came in for a closer look:
This lovely old adobe wall is being festooned with objects:
And here's a close-up of the wall:

This is part of an antique door. The white plaster will come off later.
Victor glances back just before we leave.

Lirio in Lake Chapala

The other evening, we had dinner at a home high above the western end of Lake Chapala . From there we could really see the invasive plant lirio, or water hyacinth, in the lake. Everything that looks like islands is lirio:

I liked the lushness of the corn growing nearby:

Northern Mexico Fixer Upper?

Here's an interesting question I received a while ago:

My husband and I want to retire to Mexico in about 4 years. We are doing lots of research, but would like some input from anyone with experience. We want to be either in Sonora or Chihuahua state. We would like to be in as temperate a zone as possible. We would also like to buy a small fixer upper so we can work on it, live in it at the same time, and cut costs in the long run. Question is, where do we look? And how? We're thinking on the outskirts of a small town, but not too too far from doctors etc. But we have dogs and would also like a bit of privacy from time to time. If anyone would care to respond to our inquiries, we would appreciate it. -- Peggy

And here's another query from someone else along the same lines:

By the way, did you ever look > into places closer to the border and maybe have some ideas /
tips / advice?? Thanks -

Hmm, good thing you are doing your research, Peggy, because I don't know northern Mexico very well. In much of it, the climate is pretty hot in summer, cold in winter, and windy. And a desert-type landscape, not a lot of water. But the convenience to the US can't be beat, and with rising gas costs that's a factor. Personally, I am not fond of the vibes of towns right on the border, but you don't have to go far into Mexico to find more interesting places.

One place that Kelly and I liked a lot was a town called Parras de la Fuente, not far from Saltillo, well maybe a couple of hours or so... the link takes you to the page I wrote about Parras, with photos. It would not be far to Texas. Without looking it up, my memory is that it may be in the state of Coahuila. We didn't notice any foreigners living there, but it could be a good candidate for adventuresome folks. I continue to think that more Americans will be coming south and that thus more places will develop small groups of expats.

A small city close to New Mexico is Nuevo Casas Grande. We often enter Mexico at Columbus, NM / Palomas, Chihuahua (Palomas has another formal name, General something) and go through Nuevo Casas Grande before cutting south toward the city of Chihuahua.

As for fixer-uppers, Mexico is full of them. They are everywhere. They may not be on the market with a realtor's sign on them, but start asking around. (And even with bad Spanish, you can get started. Especially in the north of Mexico, many Mexicans speak English.) Ask where you stay, where you eat, wherever you see a friendly person. Say you are looking for a small house to rent or buy.

I'd highly recommend renting something for a while before buying, just to get to know the area. We rented a place in Bernal, Queretaro, last year, for 1200 pesos a month, about $100 US.

Here's another page from my site, where I give tips on buying real estate in Mexico.

Tlaquepaque Day

Recently I went into Tlaquepaque, a charming upscale area on the edge of Guadalajara, with some girl friends. We got there on a quiet Monday morning, and enjoyed strolling through many shops. They sell items from all over Mexico: blown glass, ceramic dishes, pewter, handwoven tablecloths, and so on, all evidence of Mexico's rich tradition of artesania. One shop did have what I coined "schlockypaque" but that was rare.

There are some very nice walking streets. I was delighted to come across Maria de Guadalajara, a small clothing store specializing in solid color cotton gauze clothing cut in playful designs. In the 80s I had bought a two-piece outfit in Guadalajara from this company (though not this store) and I still have it, albeit a bit tattered. I added to my collection by getting a flowing top in the same salmon tone that the woman in the doorway is wearing, for about $27 US.



This set of tiles was nicely displayed. I'd love to buy a set, though not in this particular design. One of these days Kelly and I will make a trip to nearby Tonala to buy a nice set of dishes, and maybe I'll find some tiles there. Tonala is more of the factory town, and prices are lower there.


We had lunch at one of the many elegant restaurants:


I didn't notice till I got up close that the fountain had flowers carefully arranged in it:

I didn't think to take a picture of my red snapper lunch, as photography wasn't uppermost on my mind when it arrived. But one friend joined us a little later and kindly delayed her first bite for me to get this picture. She's having a beefsteak with rice, a decorative bit of salad, guacamole, and an enchilada covered with white cheese. Our meals with beverages came out to about $10 US each.



As we walked through Tlaquepaque after lunch, this purple building caught my eye. I got lucky in catching two Mexican men in a very characteristic Mexican action: talking on their cellphones while doing something else:

Riding Mexican Buses

Riding long distance Mexican buses can be an excellent way to get around, as in Mexico these buses are widely used. Not only are there first and second class buses, there are also deluxe and executive classes... I'm not sure which of these two is better than the other. Personally I will always opt for the most expensive, as the odds of the bathroom working and the seats having a bit more space between them are better, plus they usually make fewer stops.

I haven't done much long distance bus riding in Mexico in the last few years, though I used to do a lot. Here are some links:

This is a general primer on riding the buses in Mexico.

Here's an adventuresome long bus ride in Mexico. If you don't read the whole thing, scroll down to see how little he saved over airfare.

Here's one written by an American woman who hates buses in the US.

And I couldn't resist adding this one: riding Mexican buses with a cat. It takes a well-seasoned traveling cat.

Also, if you go to any page (except the blog ones) of this site you're on, mexico-with-heart.com, you can search on the word buses and see lots of other discussions of mine involving riding Mexican buses.

Mexican domestic water: woes and joys

I'll start with one of the joys: we've been back home in Mexico over a month now, and Kelly finally managed to get rid of the algae in the swimming pool. It took a lot of experimenting and learning about the complexities of pool maintenance. I took my first dip yesterday and it was great!

But the real saga here is our domestic water. There have been so many events that I asked Kelly to write it up. Here is his account:

It is ironic that while we have been having massive rainfall (about 3" one night recently), our gravity-fed domestic water storage system has been running dry because no city water has flowed through our pipes for about a week. Why? Well, our neighbor Maria said she thought that the city water was off, so I figured that we would just wait some; it usually returns within a day or two when that happens. But then Maria also said that the workmen down at the corner, four houses down the block, wanted to change our water line because it was interfering with a planned sidewalk.

Several days ago I talked to the men working on the wall down by the corner and asked about our water line, and they said that it was buried with debris from their work, and would be accessible in a few days. This means that the valve that controls our water is also buried under a heap of debris, so we don't really know if it is open or closed. Obviously, this could be the reason why we don't have water.

Today I noticed that the our tinaco (storage tank) was about a day away from being empty, so the situation was getting serious. I decided to pump some water from the lower cistern (aljibe) into the upper tinaco...something we have done many times. I flipped the switch on the pump, but no action...just a hum. Not good! I fiddled with the pump some, enough to realize that the armature seems to be frozen, probably from lack of use and the recent high humidity.

OK, I thought, I'll go down to the corner with a shovel and dig until I find the water pipe and valve to discover if it is on or off. This was actually pretty easy, because all of the rain had washed the dirt away from the valve handle, and it was clearly off. Great...mystery solved...I'll just turn it back on and see if we have city water.

YES! There is water spraying all over when I turn it on. There is a large smashed area on the PVC pipe where a stone had probably toppled on it during the work on the wall. The workmen's natural solution was to turn off the valve and resume their work, which buried the whole mess.

Now I have a pipe to repair, which fortunately I happen to have the parts to do. I decide to dig the whole affair down as far as I can to protect it from further damage, and replace the broken section of pipe.

Soon I can turn the water back on to see if we have water at our house again. When I turn on the faucet at the bottom of our property there is nothing. Bummer. But then when I tried the valve to the aljibe, there was water. Go figure...it turned out the the hose on the faucet was crimped.

Great. Now I need to make sure that we are actually getting water into the tinaco, so I climb the ladder to take a look. I can't hear running water, which is not a good sign. I peer in, and there is no running water.

OK, so then I checked the faucet right below the tinaco, and, sure enough, there is water. So I connect a hose to this faucet and run it up to the top of the tinaco...and there is no water there! It turns out that there isn't enough water pressure to get all the way to the top of the tinaco, which at the highest point of our property...there only enough pressure to go about half way up the tank.

This is actually not all that unusual either, since in the late afternoon, our water pressure often diminishes noticeably. The solution at this point is to wait until tomorrow morning when we will likely have better water pressure, and we will be happily back to normality...whatever that is.

Well, the next morning there still was not enough water pressure to get to the top of the tinaco. I decided to see about repairing the pump, which meant disconnecting it from the pipes and getting it out where it would be accessible. I was able to manually turn the motor armature enough, so that when I turned the switch on again it whirred into action! So then all I had to do was reassemble the plumbing, prime the pump, and bingo...we had water pumping from the aljibe into the tinaco.

Now we can just pray that the the city water pressure returns to a reasonable level so the whole system will work automatically again.

{Update: Our prayers were answered the next day.]

Mexico City College

I got an email recently that said,

“The Mexico City College Story: The History 1940-1963” is now online at

www.mexicocitycollege.com

The American Mexico City College was the predecessor

to the present Universidad de las Americas, in Puebla.

Until now, its history and “gringo” roots have been “lost.”

Joseph Quinn

So I checked it out. Amusing photo-collage from decades ago and more.

Our Mexican yard: more photos

This grand old cactus was almost invisible when we bought our place, hidden behind quite a thicket of bamboo. Kelly moved the bamboo so we could admire this view from our back door. That's lantana to the right, and the wood is decorating our chain link fence and giving us more privacy. (The wood does not touch the ground.)


Our hibiscus grew a lot while we were away, and while it blocks our view of Lake Chapala more now, it's worth it. We'll trim it one of these days. I keep meaning to research how to make hibiscus tea. Since the tea is bright red, I think it must be made from the flowers.


This is papyrus, the very plant that was used to make paper in Egypt. I don't know how.


This old tree has been down a long time, and ferns and succulents live in and around it.


As I've mentioned before, this place belonged to a family from Guadalajara for some 30 years. The doctor who owned it loved to plant things!

Mexican cat and Gringo cat

It's been almost a month that we've been back home in San Juan Cosala. Our Mexican cat, Misty, has had some serious adjusting to do. She's about a year and a half old and has been an "only cat" since we got her as a young kitten. She had cat friends (and enemies) who used to come into our yard when we lived in Bernal, Queretaro, with her.

She was not pleased when we came back from the US with Moonlight, our six-year-old half-Siamese talker. She tended to find high places that she could glare at him from:



But with time, they are getting along better. Their favorite place to hang out is our bed:



We've seen them even closer. But no cuddles yet, not with each other.

If I hadn't been so extremely fond of Moonlight, we would likely have found him a good home in the US. (His sister Midnight did stay behind with friends in Crestone, and she is doing great there.) There is certainly no lack of cats in the Lake Chapala area. Barb Hess, the cat lady at the Animal Shelter in Riberas del Pilar, told Kelly the other day that they have many, many cats available for adoption at present. It's a great situation for the humans who adopt them, as they are given topnotch health care before being offered. If you live in the Lake Chapala area, and are thinking of a cat in your life, do go by! They also welcome cat-lovers who just want to pet some cats.