Archive for the ‘PLACES’ Category

Bernal, Queretaro, is a charming, upscale Mexican town about an hour from the lovely colonial city of Queretaro. A few foreigners live there, and we were among them for several months in 2005. But of the 5,000 or so inhabitants, fewer than two dozen were foreign… and we never met many of those! Our Spanish [...]

Over several  months, my husband Kelly has been working with students at the nearby Ninos y Jovenes boarding school and with members of the Chapala Green group, along with other people who have turned up at times.
They’ve been creating a demonstration project for earthbag building, a method that Kelly used to build the house we [...]

I feel very lucky to have been to El Tajín, deep in the jungle and far from the usual tourist routes. Kelly and I were there in 2003.
We came up El Tajín on a misty winter day, a Monday morning when very few tourists were about:

Its heyday was probably from about 800 AD to 1200 [...]

Here’s a guest article by my friend Alison Soloman who is just starting a website on cheap travel. . — Rosana
For years, my partner and I talked of traveling to Southeast Asia.  Last fall we were finally able to take the trip of our dreams, a month traveling through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.  Little did [...]

My friends Alison and Carol of Cheaptravelmadeeasy.com went to Mexico City last year (2008) for a vacation from their lives here by Lake Chapala. In this guest article, Alison gives excellent tips for how to take care of yourself in any city in the world. She also comes to surprising conclusions about safety for women [...]

Before this area got some rain in May, Kelly and I had quite a window seat to watch a forest fire happening across Lake Chapala from us, on the beautiful and inactive volcano called Mt. Garcia. It went on for well over a week. The local press reported that not only was the terrain difficult [...]

April 25, 2009 — One Saturday Kelly and I walked a few blocks to the butcher shop we use sometimes here in San Juan Cosalá. We got ground beef for our dogs and some lamb for us, and while Kelly was paying, I noticed that the big double doors to a nice house right across [...]

March 7, 2009 – Living by Lake Chapala means we enjoy the beauty of the lake, from many vantage points. We have a nice though not panoramic view of the lake from our house, and we often walk down to the lake.
San Juan Cosala’s new malecon isn’t completed yet, but already I think it’s [...]

Feb. 22, 2009 – One day this week, Gerardo Tolantino stopped by. He teaches English at the middle school here, and we made a YouTube video of an historic tour he gave of our town, San Juan Cosala,  a while back. That link takes you to the video.
This time, he invited us to the school [...]

Sept. 23, 2008 — On a recent Saturday afternoon, Kelly and I sat on a rooftop in Ajijic, at the home of some friends who live right in the village. We enjoyed the company of a variety of other people, but there was another reason we spent most of the time on the roof rather [...]