oct 12, 2008 – Karen Blue had a good career going in California when at 52, she quit, sold her house, and moved to Ajijic, Mexico. Her family and her closest friends thought she was crazy.

Once down here and settled in, she began talking with other women who had come down by themselves from the US and Canada. the result is a fascinating book, Midlife Mavericks: Women Reinventing Their Lives in Mexico. It describes the lives of quite a variety of women, of varying ages.

The book reads very smoothly and pleasantly, but if you are in the US and thinking about possibly living in Mexico, by yourself or not, be warned:

This book could be life changing!

That’s why I just bought a copy the other day from Blue (that’s what she goes by). I’m going to give it to one of my sisters-in-law, on purpose.

Do I think the book is an accurate description of life around Ajijic and Lake Chapala? Yes. Prices have risen since the book came out in 2000, and rentals are probably harder to find. But overall, the flavor of life as she describes it seems accurate to me.

My own life is a bit different, but then each woman’s life is unique. Mine is different in that I am less active in the gringo community. I’m much more likely to be found at home, in front of my computer. As I almost never feel comfortable driving in Mexico, I don’t run around nearly as much as most expats here. But I’m kinda a homebody wherever I am… it’s just a bit more marked here. And I’ve made a real effort to develop friendships with Mexicans.

I would never have had the guts to come down to Mexico on my own, but even if you think you never could, this book is well worth reading!

It’s available through Blue’s website and via Amazon.com:

Midlife Mavericks is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

7 Comments from the old blog:

• At March 06, 2008 8:01 PM,  Nancy said…

  I often buy English language books from Amate Books in Oaxaxa. They frequently come within a week and the prices are excellent. You can order online.

  www.amatebooks.com

• And she added: http://www.amatebooks.com/Tienda%20Merida.php

• At March 07, 2008 2:42 PM,  Rosana Hart said…

  Thanks, Nancy! It’s the long way round for the books to go to Oaxaca first but hey if it works and is easier, I am all in favor. I

• At March 07, 2008 9:37 PM,  Catalyst said…

  I was pleased to discover your blog. My wife and I lived in Ajijic, then Guadalajara, then back to San Antonio Tlayacapan in the late 1980′s and early 1990′s. Sandi Bookstore became a near daily destination when we lived in the city. It was great to see it again and, on the store’s website, I believe the gray-haired woman in one of the pictures is the Sandi the store is really named after. Thanks for bringing back some great memories.

• At March 08, 2008 8:55 PM,  Rosana Hart said…

  Welcome, Catalyst! If you come back and see this, I would enjoy knowing what took you back to the US, always an interesting quiestion to us here.

• At October 28, 2008 12:31 PM,  bordersaside said…

  I was going crazy until our first trip to Guadalajara. We went in many books stores and found few books in English. By the time we got to Sandies my hopes were pretty low on what we would find. It was like heaven opened its doors to me when we went in. I couldn’t believe it a whole store of English books. I am curious to if you ended up ordering through them. They told us about it but we live about an hour away and cant make it there that often. We also have friends who will be bringing books down or mailing them. We had ordered from a site called better world books that had cheep international books but the books never got to us. The mail system is pretty bad as you said. Sorry if Im over commenting on your blogs. This is the first time I can speak to someone in English about he experiences Iv had here who actually has had them also. Im loving this. Thank you.

  I am an avid reader and just dont know what to do with my self if I dont have a stack of books ready to be read. When I moved here we moved with just the suitcases we were allowed on the plane. Considering it was me and my 2 year old. Toys came before books.

• At October 29, 2008 3:01 PM,  Rosana Hart said…

  I never did use them. I have enough friends coming and going to the US that I mostly buy from Amazon, abe.com, alibris.com, and the like, with occasional binges in physical bookstores when I get north myself. I am also discovering more ebooks to download and read on my computer.

Buying Books in Guadalajara is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Mexico: The Trick is Living Here is part how-to guide and part story of Julia’s experiences. Now in its second edition, this downloadable ebook is very enjoyable reading. If you are thinking of living in Mexico, especially on a modest budget, I’m sure you’d learn a lot.

Repeatedly, I found myself nodding my agreement with her comments. Here’s a bit about driving that had me chortling, not at what she is saying but at how well she captures the feeling of it: She asks the question of whether it is okay to pass on the right, and then answers her question:

While I only pass on the right when I’m in a total traffic snarl, other people pass on the right at any time they want to and this is okay with me. I simply allow them to cut in front of me afterwards and continue on my merry way.” Note the chipper attitude implicit in that reply. It is important to be totally at peace with the new driving rules. [page 24]

Here’s a related pithy comment that reflects on one of the more challenging cultural differences we Notherners encounter: “The police in Mexico have no commitment to the truth but they do have the power to define it.” Okay, that’s sometimes true up north, but much more here.

She warns against using IMSS, the inexpensive and badly overworked national health care system. It almost killed her husband after he had a broken arm in an accident. I’ve heard other horror stories like this about IMSS and also good things. Me, I plan to avoid it!

Of course, there were places where our experiences have been different or where I disagreed with her conclusions but that is natural when you have two different people writing about as complex a country as Mexico, from different parts of it! She is much more cavalier than I am about eating unprocessed vegetables, for example. Another topic we would handle differently is that Julia describes having your social security payments deposited into a Mexican bank. While this is one option, she doesn’t mention what I believe is a much more common one, that of having the payments deposited in a bank in the US and then using an ATM card (debit card) to draw out cash.

She and her husband have a son who was born in Mexico and there is a section on how to do the correct paperwork to get U. S. citizenship for a baby born of an American parent in Mexico.

The ebook talks about teaching English in Mexico. Julia goes into many details of working and paying taxes, including getting an FM3 resident visa. Her experience was even more tedious than ours, and that’s saying something! She doesn’t talk in this section about getting an FM3 like we did, as people with income from outside of Mexico. Hers is the working type. (There are various types of FM3s.)

She interviewed Canadians and has a good section on the tax and other implications for Canadians of establishing their residence outside of Canada.

The ebook isn’t chiefly about retiring in Mexico, though she mentions it quite often… it’s a mixture of her own experiences and information she has gleaned from numerous interviews she did for the book.

Kudos to Julia Taylor!

UPDATE: It’s now out as a paperback, and you can get it at Amazon. Click the image to find out more:

Mexico: the Trick is Living Here… A Review is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

It’s rare that I become so absorbed in a work of history that I gobble the book up. But I’ve become absorbed in The Life and Times of Mexico, by Early Shorris, an American who has a fascinating depth of understanding of Mexican history and has had friends at all levels of Mexican society, all over the country.

There’s an awful lot of tragedy and death in any country’s history, and I’ve known enough about that aspect of Mexico’s history that I almost didn’t pick this book up when I saw it on the new book shelf of our local public library. But I did pick it up, and I have been saying, “Aha!” in every chapter. For example, it’s widely known that in the Mayan culture, time was a central concept. Shorris brings this forward to here and now. Here’s a quote:

Wars between the Maya forces were based on issues related to time. Entire city-states engaged in war and destroyed one another over questions of time all through the history of pre-Hispanic Mexico. And battles over time have not ended but continue in other forms in Mexico, reminders of the long shadows of history, the genes of culture.

The mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and President Vicente Fox differed over the use of daylight savings time. As a result, all Mexico except Mexico City operated on daylight savings time. The argument over the control of time in Mexico City led to neighbors, businesses, and governement bureaus choosing different versions of the correct hours. Leftists and rightists set their watches to different times. It was both ridiculous and chaotic… Eventually the Mexican Supreme Court brought the left-of-center party (PRD) into conformance with the rest of the country.

This sort of tale is woven through the book. I highly recommend The Life and Times of Mexico,  for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the historical contemporary forces in Mexico. I have had to skim over some of the military sections as a bit much for me, but even in them, I’ve learned useful things. Shorris has also written Under the Fifth Sun: A Novel of Pancho Villa and edited In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature, Pre-Columbian to the Present

Here  is  the book I read at Amazon:

The Life and Times of Mexico, by Earl Shorris is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

As Mexican guidebooks go, this one is more like Lonely Planet Mexico than anything else I’ve seen, in the scope of its coverage and the variety of added sections it offers to the basic listings of places,hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc. It’s about 100 pages shorter, and with slightly larger print. It’s a British publication, with British spelling and a good section on getting to Mexico from the U.K.

The Rough Guide to Mexico begins with a color section introducing highlights of Mexico, and then has a lengthy section called Basics, which covers ways to get there, visas, money, etc. There are short discussions of work and study, travelers with disabilities, women travelers, gay and lesbian travelers, and traveling with children.

The guide section, which is most of the book, organizes Mexico into ten parts:

• Baja California and the Pacific Northwest
• Between the Sierras: Northeast Routes
• Northern Jalisco and Michoacan
• The Bajio
• Mexico City and around
• Acapulco and the Pacific Beaches
• Veracruz
• Oaxaca
• Chiapas and Tabasco
• The Yucatan

The book ends with a section called Contexts, which discusses history, the pre-Columbian belief system, environment and wildlife, Mexican music, and books. I specially like the section on the traditional beliefs.

I do have a slight quibble with this organization scheme. Because they didn’t really have a section for the whole Gulf of Mexico area (just one on Veracruz) they covered the wonderfully bizarre Las Pozas of Edward James, near the town of Xilitla, in the “Around Queretaro” part of the Bahio section. Considering that Xilitla is really part of the low-lying Huasteca region — lush, green, and hotter — and Queretaro is in the much drier central highlands, I would have organized things differently myself.

The road between Queretaro and Xilitla is a very winding mountain road… one section of it is known to have over 800 curves! We avoided going that way ourselves. To be fair, the Rough Guide does tell you it’s a long way. In most Mexican guidebooks, the Huasteca gets short shrift and I’m taking it out on this guidebook.

When we spent a month in the charming colonial city of Guanajuato, I gave all my guidebooks a good workout. The Rough Guide to Mexico, Lonely Planet Mexico, and Frommer’s Mexico all have roughly the same length sections and generally they cover the same things. You’d be fine with any one of them in Guanajuato.

I like this guidebook as a companion to give another point of view to Lonely Planet, and I’m sure there are people who prefer the Rough Guide to Mexico or Frommer’s. It’s great to have a choice.

Click on the image to go to Amazon:

The Rough Guide to Mexico: A Review is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

This is my all-time favorite book on Mexico. I love its motto: “Wherever you go… there you are!”

I doubt we would have made our four-month trip throughout Mexico and Guatemala in 1979 without being inspired by these three adventurers. I wonder how many other people’s trips, and even moves to Mexico, have been inspired by this book. It does such a terrific job of explaining how you can live and travel economically in a very different culture.

And it’s just plain fun to read.

Before a recent trip, I got the current edition out of the library, thinking I would just skim through it. All I had to do was look it over to know that I needed a copy with me. There is so much practical advice in its nearly-600 pages, often dispensed in hilarious stories. Driving, camping, staying healthy, shopping… a wonderful compendium! Its list of books and websites is over 40 pages.

To give you a bit of the flavor, here are some bits from the chapter on camping:

Camping in Mexico is different in many ways from camping in the U.S. and Canada. In the backcountry, many Mexicans live all of their lives on a scale that we would consider “camping.” Chopping firewood, hauling water, hunting, fishing, gathering herbs, wild fruits, and vegetables, and sleeping on mats or hard cots are all part of the normal daily routine.

These backcountry Mexicans find it difficult to understand why rich people — and we are definitely rich by their standards — deliberately regress from luxury to “roughing it.” Camping is therefore a rather unusual activity, something to be curious about. This curiosity makes “getting away from it all” almost impossible…

Maintaining normal activities (eating, reading writing…) can be difficult with a group of people looking on, but it can be done. Present a rather unexciting appearance and don’t do anything hilarious or unexpected. Your visitors will eventually drift away or at least relax the intensity of their stares…. If you decide, however, to do a tune-up on the engine, you’ll undoubtedly have them on the edge of their seats — if not right in the engine compartment with you — for the entire fascinating procedure, no matter how long it may take.

Carl Franz goes on to comment that he has often asked his onlookers to teach him something about how they do things, and that has led to making real friends.

I could have opened the book to practically any page and found something quoteworthy. I chose this selection because I can vouch for its advice. It’s helped us, even when just parked in towns and relaxing in our vehicle.

I do disagree with one thing: I think roaming around Mexico is now probably somewhat more dangerous than the book makes it sound.

Of course, The People’s Guide to Mexico is at Amazon. Get the newest edition… a lot of work goes into the changes from one edition to the next. Clicking on the image takes you to Amazon…

The People’s Guide to Mexico: A Review is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Strong words, but we have used the Traveler’s Guide to Mexican Camping: Explore Mexico and Belize with RV or Tent constantly on two long trips to Mexico, and it is incredibly useful. Authors Mike and Terri Church go all over Mexico, GPS unit and sharp eyes at the ready, and they write detailed descriptions of campgrounds that are right in the mainstream and of ones that nobody might ever find otherwise. Their directions on how to get to these places, and what size rigs can go there, are superb. There is also a version for Baja alone.

Of course, no guidebook is perfect. We have found a few other Mexican campgrounds just by driving around, or on the internet, or occasionally mentioned in general guidebooks. Some of the places listed here have since closed.

I wrote this review while my husband and I were spending a month at the Morrill trailer park in Guanajuato. The photo shows our sweet little spot, complete with our own patio and full hookups. We found out about this place through the Traveler’s Guide to Mexican Camping.

Recently a German couple arrived at this campground because some other Germans had told them about it. They were just beginning their trip through Mexico, and didn’t know about “the Churches’ book,” as travelers often call it. They borrowed our copy — we were already very good friends by then, or I would never have let it out of my motorhome. They were just going to phone their daughter in San Francisco and have her get it and mail it to them when some Canadians pulled in. They had just been in San Miguel de Allende, a town with many English-language resources. They were quite sure our German friends could get a copy of Traveler’s Guide to Mexican Camping there. RV travel in Mexico has been revolutionized by this book!

Click on the image to go to Amazon:

Traveler’s Guide to Mexican Camping: A Review is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

The Lonely Planet series has the reputation of being more for the backpacker crowd, perhaps because that’s how they got started, but this book is suitable for travelers of all budgets and points of view. I appreciate that Lonely Planet Mexico gives actual price ranges for hotels and restaurants rather than using codes for different price levels, like many other guidebooks do. However, do keep in mind that the peso-dollar exchange rate may be different than when this guidebook was researched.

The book begins with several general chapters, with suggested itineraries, an overview of Mexican history, a description of Mexican culture, environment, and food and drink. The bulk of the book is the place-by-place section, beginning with Mexico City and working its way around the whole country. A back section includes a directory of practical advice, information on travel to and within Mexico, health tips, a section on essential Spanish, a short glossary of Spanish words and phrases, and a very good index. (I love a good index! I’m always looking up something I remember reading before.) John Noble is the coordinating author, with a group of  other writers credited as well.

This is by far the most comprehensive guidebook I’ve seen on Mexico. Its very comprehensiveness means that it is the one guidebook most travelers to Mexico seem to have. No problem, so long as you don’t limit your choice of hotels, restaurants, or tourist attractions to only the ones covered here.

Also, there can be a tendency to think that a guidebook represents The Truth. As a longtime librarian, I can tell you that no one book has it all. For that reason, I like to travel with more than one. For roaming around Mexico, start with Lonely Planet Mexico and consider adding the Rough Guide to Mexico or Frommer’s Mexico. (If you are only going to the cities that Frommer’s covers, it could serve as your first pick.)

We tear the map pages out of our Lonely Planet Mexico and carry them with us in the cities and archaeological sites we go to. We prefer to wander around with as little stuff with us as possible, the better to put our attention on what’s around us. I do shock some of my friends by destroying books!

Here is the 2009 edition at Amazon… click on it to go find out more there.

Lonely Planet Mexico: A Review is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

“Mexico” Mike™ Nelson, who wrote this, has written many of the Mexican guides published over the years by Sanborn’s, a Mexican insurance company. He has definitely put in his miles.

This book  says a lot about AA and how to find it throughout Mexico.

Contents include general information on moving to Mexico and then a series of short “pros, cons, and in-betweens” for a variety of cities and towns in Mexico. I like those.

If you love to read a lot on a topic, this is definitely worth getting. Click on the image to go to Amazon:

Live Better South of the Border: A Review is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Inside Mexico: Living, Traveling, and Doing Business in a Changing Society, by Paula Heusinkveld, is quite different from the other books reviewed here. It’s not a how-to guide as such, but there’d be less misunderstanding if more of us read this gem.

I’ve read and reread this short book, and it has helped me tremendously to understand Mexico and Mexicans. Their culture is different enough from ours that their habits don’t always make sense to us.

For example, in the chapter on manners, the author points out that Mexican people often thank shop clerks when leaving a store. I have adopted this habit and I’ve discovered that it can lead to enjoyable short conversations. Published in 1994, Inside Mexico is still very timely, as it deals with the kinds of things that don’t change quickly.

Click on the image to go to Amazon.

Inside Mexico: A Review is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico