Globos!

The annual balloon competition takes place every September, around the Independence Day celebrations. Believe it or not, this lovely thing is made mainly of tissue paper. People work together on their globos, whether it’s a family, a neighborhood or a business.

We were several blocks from the soccer field where the globos were being launched, and that was fine with me because while most of them got off to a good start, I’m not very Mexican in my ideas about what is safe.

They go aloft — and some go very high indeed — due to being little hot air balloons, and the heat is supplied by kerosene-soaked cotton or rags that are set on fire just before blast off.

I’m glad that all this takes place in the middle of the rainy season. Here is the pretty one above, crashing and burning.

.

This is one of the more elaborate globos. To see a whole slide show of the many photos Kelly took that day, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellyhart/sets/72157607290460439/show/ and click on "slide show" at upper right.

1 Comment from old blog:

• At September 24, 2008 9:24 PM,  Catalyst said…

  Yes! Kelly’s slideshow is fantastic!

Globos in Ajijic is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Oct 17, 2007 — On Saturday, a friend and I joined some other friends for a fundraising walk put on by the Hash House Harriers of Ajijic. We went to lower Chula Vista, an older and quite nice residential neighborhood just above the lake highway, between Ajijic and Chapala. We arrived at the private home being used for the event, each paid 100 pesos (about $9 US), signed in, and decided which walk to talk: the fast one of 4 km (about 2.5 miles), the medium one of 2 km, and the slow one of 1 km. There was also the option to be a philosopher and sit around!

My friend and her dog went for the fast option, while I chose the medium. I could easily go 4 km, but I’m not particularly fast. I didn’t know anyone else in the medium group, but people were friendly and so I chatted with a variety of other Americans. There may have been some Canadians among us too, but I didn’t notice that accent.

The walk was past a variety of attractive homes, and was over all too soon for me. Not really a lot of exercise! Then there was a pancake breakfast with bacon, fruit, coffee, fruit juice and the option of booze. Not my thing at mid-morning. We ate, chatted, applauded as prizes were awarded to the fastest in each category. Fun. I believe that the HHH walk every Saturday morning.

Walking with the Ajijic Hash House Harriers is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Traffic in Ajijic was slowed to a crawl, not unusual along the carretera in Ajijic, but it will be even worse when the snowbirds arrive in another couple of months! We continued through the center of town, along the tree-shaded boulevard as we passed through La Floresta, and made a quick stop at our favorite ATM. We went on past one of the most popular grocery stores for foreigners, Superlake, and on to the area known as Riberas del Pilar. There our destination was the Animal Shelter, where we often buy our pet food as all profits go to the shelter itself. I stopped to watch the cats and kittens playing… the dogs live across the street, so I rarely see them.

The Animal Shelter was out of the dog food we prefer (Diamond for large breeds) but that was okay, we were shopping for it before we really needed it. It might come in on Monday, they said. They did have my favorite clumping cat litter, so I got a couple of month’s worth. Things being in or out of stock is a rather common occurrence, particularly in shopping for imported or speciality items, at all the stores here. Just a part of life.

We returned to Ajijic on the highway, and parked near several places we were going. We ordered lunch and I went to pay our internet bill at Lagunanet and get more minutes put on our Mexican cellphone at another store before the food came.

We got to chatting with our waiter, whose English wasn’t yet fluent but was pretty good. He said he finds English difficult and wondered (jokingly, I hope) if Chinese would be easier. We asked him friendly questions about his life, in English, and soon learned that he is 27 and has a passion for photography — not digital as much as old black and white darkroom work. He is from Mexico City and has been here less than a year. He misses it but he does like seeing the stars and the mountains, which he didn’t see there. When our food came, he politely withdrew but I was so much enjoying the interaction that I asked him some more questions. He was a very sweet guy, and chatting with him was one of more interesting bits of the trip. When he learned that Kelly had done a lot of black and white work years ago, he asked if Kelly would look at some of his work sometime. Kelly said sure and gave him his card.

While Kelly went to the hardware store, I stopped in at a well-stocked farmacia for dental floss, Q tips, and lip gloss. I didn’t know all the words for these things but the clerk had no trouble understanding my descriptions and pantomime. Then I popped into a second-hand clothing store which has a lot of stuff from foreigners, but nothing spoke to me. I skipped the bookstore with its selection of books in English — travel guides, books on learning Spanish, books about Mexico, some novels etc.

Noticing that my favorite beggar wasn’t there, I wondered if she was over at Superlake. I hoped her stomach trouble wasn’t any worse. I passed the other beggar I know, a friendly blind man who speaks English. There aren’t that many beggars around here, and the usual ones don’t have the desperate and whiny attitude that I’ve seen in Guadalajara and in cities all over the 3rd world. I suspect they have learned that you can catch more flies with honey.

I did our grocery shopping for the week at El Torito, right there with the other stores. It is another grocery store that caters to foreigners though it has fewer imports than Superlake.  We were about out of produce so I stocked up. A few things, such as Washington state apples, come from the US, but mostly it’s Mexican. I also got meat and other odds and ends.

Kelly joined me, and when done we drove the car over to Prasad, a small shop on the other side of the carretera where we get our vitamins. This actually took some doing as it was about 2 PM, one of the times the highway is most crowded with Mexicans going home for lunch. There isn’t a traffic light there. Eventually we got across and I bought some American and some Mexican brands of nutritional supplements from Gil, the Brazilian owner and a very friendly fellow. The imported things do cost more here in Mexico, as a general rule.

Maybe I should explain about driving the the other side of the street! Many Mexican roads have lateral roads on either side of them, for parking and errands. That was the case here. The laterals are one way in the same direction as the lane of the highway they are next to.

We had thought of going to Barbara’s Bazaar, an interesting secondhand store, but they were already closed for their Mexican-style lunch break from 2 to 4. So we decided to head on home, about a 15 or 20 minute trip from Ajijic.

Home, our Rottweiler puppy went wild with joy. We were pretty glad to be back ourselves.
1 Comments:

*

At September 26, 2007 elliott said…

something about this post gave me a vivid memory of how indignant I would be if a store was out of something up North. What a waste of time that seems now!  Elliott
www.lifestylerefugee.vidalago.com

Errands in Ajijic is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

One of my happiest memories of the Secret Garden was a dinner last November, a festive Saturday evening with our friends who were here adopting their daughter. There were four or five couples (mostly Irish) who were here doing adoptions, plus all their babies and assorted friends and relatives. We were a jolly crowd, and I enjoyed the young Mexican man who was playing Andean music on his guitar and Andean flute.

Our waitress was the ever-vivacious Fran (Francesca) who spoke English and knew my friends well. I have a lovely mental image of her dancing to the Andean music in between keeping us supplied with food and drink.

My sad news is that Fran died recently. I don’t have the details, but she had been ill for a couple of weeks or so, and one day she died, at home. She was 49.

My happy news is that the friend we had lunch with the other day is an American woman who was here about a year ago, checking out Ajijic as a place to retire to, and she loved it. She went back to California, figured out a way to get early retirement, and just came back now to find a modestly priced long term rental. She timed her visit well, on purpose, as things are relatively quiet around Ajijic with all the snowbirds having flown. She got in the flow and had her choice of at least a couple of places that would normally rent for about $600 US per month but were offered to her for about $450. She’s signed a lease on a very sweet and private one-bedroom place within walking distance of everything. She’ll go back to the US soon to get her stuff, and likely will be back before we return from our trip!

Sad News, Happy News in Ajijic is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Then we decided to go for a walk before returning home. We parked just off the main carretera, or highway, on the eastern side of Ajijic, by a neighborhood called La Floresta. It’s a peaceful, suburban sort of community, with its own garbage collection and police, and popular with foreigners as a place to live. We had often walked last year through the part of La Floresta which is between the carretera and Lake Chapala, but we had never walked in this area.

Upper La Floresta is gated, though the lower one isn’t. We liked these flowers cascading over the gate:

Here, the plants on the wall are metalwork:

Mexican tile work is often quite lively! These are from two different houses in the neighborhood:

Upper La Floresta, Ajijic is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Oct 19, 2006 — A couple of months ago, I met an American naturopathic doctor who lives in nearby Ajijic and began doing a health-enhancing program under his supervision. I’m definitely feeling better from it — I’m drinking two quarts of water or so daily, and eating in a way that is designed for my particular metabolism. It’s nice to have lost some weight too!

Anyway, Doc McGee and his wife MarCia McBride-McGee manage an attractive bed and breakfast in Ajijic. Since they are both very nice people, I am sure that staying there would be a very pleasant introduction to the Lake Chapala area. Room rates are reasonable, with seasonal discounts, wireless internet throughout, and more. For more details see the Ajijic La Paloma Bed and Breakfast website, which has a lot of pictures. And if you go, tell them Rosana sent you!

There are actually quite a few very nice expat-run B and Bs in the Lake Chapala area. If you are coming to the area to explore whether it would be for you, I think staying in one of them would be a very valuable way to immediately have people you could talk to (in English!) with all your questions.

La Paloma, An Ajijic Bed and Breakfast is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

There’s a guidebook for living here, Mexico’s Lake Chapala and Ajijic: The Insider’s Guide, by Theresa Kendrick, which has an amazing number of descriptive lists, from the obvious things like restaurants and places to stay to veterinarians and furniture stores. With research from that and from ads in both local English-language free monthly magazines, we’d compiled a list of possible destinations and items to get.

We began by looking for one of two pet food stores on the western side of Ajijic, on the highway. I think we saw the sign for one as we passed it, so we stopped near the other one. It was said to open at nine, but at ten after, it was shut up tight. Okay.

We then drove further east on the highway and parked the motorhome in deep shade — it gets quite warm here in the middle of the day! We were both wearing short sleeved shirts and light slacks, with sandals.

I went into the telephone company office while Kelly went to one of the best hardware stores in the area. I took a number from an electronic device at the phone company, and after a while it was my turn. I told the young man that we had just bought a house in San Juan Cosola and we were wondering about getting a phone. Our conversation was in Spanish but he also speaks English. He explained that it would be about $180 US for installation, including the cost of the phone, and about $18 US a month. If we were living in one of the parts of San Juan Cosala where new phone service was available, it would take about two months. He asked for our address, looked it up on his computer, and said that he was sorry but no phone service was available to us.

I wasn’t exactly heartbroken, as we had been thinking of getting a local Mexican cellphone to go with our Verizon North American plan cellphone which actually allows us to make lots of calls in Mexico within its monthly fee. We’ll likely get a Mexican cellphone too so that people in Mexico can call us without it being a long distance call to the US for them.

Kelly had amassed a good pile of hose and hardware items, and after I helped him choose drawer handles to replace the agonizingly painful ones in our kitchen and bought a couple of packets of garden seeds, we were done there. We were helped by an efficient young woman whose English was excellent. I said, “Your English is as good as ours… did you grow up in the states?” She said yes.

We put all our stuff in the motorhome and left it there again. No parking meters, no signs limiting how long we could stay.

We left the highway and walked several blocks to Carlos’ bazaar, a second-hand store. Much of this walk, we were the only foreigners around but as we got more into the center of town, there were more foreigners everywhere. It takes a bit of getting used to, but I’m enjoying this bi-cultural life more all the time.

We were on a furniture quest more than anything. There was a nice wooden desk there, but it was sold. We walked through the town plaza to the Secret Garden, where we had a delicious brunch. It’s a garden restaurant in a back yard. Kelly and I had veggie crepes with salad, and it was delicious. I spoke to an American woman at the next table, and she said how she’s been coming to Ajijic for three months or so every year for 14 years. She’s in her early 70s now and commented on how much at home she feels here, how much friendlier people are. But with tons of kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids back home in Michigan, she’s happiest being there much of the time.

As we left, I asked if she happened to know the hair salon with her name that was a few blocks away. Both she and another American woman at a nearby table highly recommended another place, right by the El Torito grocery store. We’d be going there later, so I said I’d check it out.

Next we walked a few more blocks to an incredible second-hand store, Barbara’s Bazaar. It has room after room of furniture and all kinds of smaller stuff. I had been there before and was curious what my artistic husband would notice. We browsed happily for quite a while but nothing was exactly right for our house.

It was after noon by now, and the sun was quite high overhead, so we couldn’t take advantage of the shade that usually is available when you are walking on streets in Mexican towns. We went to Lloyd’s, an investment house (not exactly a bank) where we have an account in pesos. It’s in an old mansion and we went first to one counter and told them that we wanted to withdraw some money. We gave them our account number and Kelly’s FM3 visa. The helpful woman said it would be about ten minutes, but it was less when she said our check was ready. We thought we were getting cash so that was a surprise. She explained that we could cash the check across the building in another area. I relaxed in one of the many comfortable chairs while Kelly got pesos after again showing his visa. I watched the people: just about all seemed to be foreigners.

Kelly stopped in at another hardware store for some things the first one hadn’t carried, while I checked out the hair salon. It was full of foreigners. I decided that I’d rather see about finding a more Mexican place in my own town, and started the grocery shopping. I took advantage of the fact that we had our wheels with us to buy a lot: lamb chops, ground beef, chicken legs still attached to each other, greens from an organic place in the area and other produce, our favorite yogurts, and more. This store is one of two I know of that carries a lot of US goods. I was glad to see Newman’s Own ranch dressing, a favorite of mine, and it wasn’t too highly priced. Mostly we choose Mexican goods, but we’re not purists.

On our way out of Ajijic, the pet food place was open and I bought some lamb-rice naturally preserved dog food made in Mexico and about the same price I’d expect in the US. We stopped at several furniture stores on the highway too. A couple were a bit rich for our blood, but we found a desk for me and a huge bookcase which will act as a room divider, both made of pine. They should be delivered in the next couple of days.

Once back in San Juan Cosola, a cow crossing the street went slowly enough that we got past it. We were glad to get home and relax.

Ajijic Errand Day is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

I said goodbye to him at the station … well, actually, at the fish market two doors down from the tiny station, because the man who sells bus tickets is the son of the fish vendor, so he was hanging out and selling tickets there.

I didn’t know what I was going to do exactly, just stroll around, maybe walk home or maybe figure out the local buses. I got an ice cream cone and sat on a bench in the plaza eating it.

After a while, an older Mexican lady asked me if I lived there. I said no, and we got into conversation. After a while, her granddaughter joined us. She spoke good English, and that was helpful as I was finding it a little difficult to follow the older lady’s Spanish.

We chatted for a long time. The older lady had been widowed with five very young children many years earlier, and she had worked in a scientific capacity rare at the time. She wasn’t credentialed in the field but had learned a lot from her husband, a doctor, before he died. Her granddaughter lives in nearby Jocotepec and works at a school for both deaf children and children with disabilities. Its funding has been greatly helped by the foreign community.

The granddaughter had a sister with her, who took this picture. She’s married to an American, and they were visiting from Texas.

I was curious to know the old lady’s age but wasn’t sure if it was polite to ask. So I asked the granddaughter if I could ask and she said it would be fine. The old lady proudly said that she was 91. You can see that she doesn’t look it. (Just for the record, she is the one in the middle!)

After we parted, my heart was full from such a friendly encounter. I wandered around Ajijic and meandered back toward home, never quite figuring out the buses. That was just as well, because later I had another good conversation when I stopped to browse in a shop. I got to talking with a man who appeared to own the shop, and a young woman of approximately college age. Her English was way better than my Spanish, and we got into a far-ranging conversation about Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom, capitalism, living an authentic life, and much more!

My sister claims that I am a world-class extrovert, but I think that these kinds of exchanges are available to any visitor to Mexico who is willing to stretch a little. If you don’t speak much Spanish, of course there will be limitations but the bulk of both talks today was in English.

Conversations in Ajijic is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

While many showpiece homes are offered at $300,000 US and up and up and up, there is also a good selection of homes below that figure. Prices are usually quoted in US dollars. In the lower price ranges, there are condos, small houses, and a few fixer-uppers.

Gated communities are popular. Many of the homes in the area are owned by Mexican families from Guadalajara who come out some weekends and holidays. Construction is going on everywhere you look, and much that is for sale is either brand new or just a few years old.

It’s easy to find out about Ajijic homes or land for sale. Several of the realty firms have weekly open houses or other introductions. There are at least three free full-color monthly magazines that you will see around town. If you are looking from afar, just do an internet search on Ajijic real estate, and that will take you to the websites of many of the real estate firms. A search on Ajijic rentals will yield information too.

Ajijic rentals

It’s an interesting fact of Mexican real estate that in most parts of the country rental prices are lower in proportion to sales prices than is the case north of the border. So you can often get great deals on rentals.

This is  less evident in Ajijic itself than in other lakeside communities, because Ajijic is so popular with foreigners. But still, you can rent very nice furnished houses for well under $1,000 a month, though you may also be expected to pay for the gardener, maid, and utilities. Availability of rentals varies with the seasons. Even though the weather is nice here year-round, many foreigners go back to the US or Canada for some months in the summer. It will be much harder to find good rentals for the winter months. One place to look for rentals is the Lake Chapala Society bulletin board.

Some interesting numbers

There’s an association that some of the real estate companies belong to in the Lake Chapala area and it produces various reports. These numbers seem to only include sales that went through these particular firms, so the totals would be incomplete and a bit skewed.

In 2002, 154 homes in the Lake Chapala area were sold for an average price of about $112,000 US. The next year, the number sold jumped to 232 and the average price went up to $143,000. In 2004, the total sold jumped to 394 homes and the average price went up a little, to $148,000. Then in 2005, data through November indicated 366 homes sold, with a huge price jump: average price was $205,000. Of course, it only takes the sale of a few palatial estates to skew figures upward.

The overall picture does resemble the activity in the US. There seems to be quite a lot of feeling in this area that even with US housing market slow, this one would continue to be a good long-term investment, because  many people are discovering the joys of living in Mexico in general and the Lake Chapala region in particular. And there are all those baby boomers heading towards retirement! We’ll see. The market is slower now, certainly, than it was in the boom times a few years ago.

Ajijic Real Estate is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Why?

• It’s a very charming place, as my Ajijjic photo collage shows. (That page is rather slow-loading, so I’ve set this link to open in a new window.)
• People love to live by water, or with water views.
• The weather is described as “spring-like year round” and when we were there one December and January, sunny skies and temperatures in the high 70s were delightful.
• Access is easy, with the Guadalajara International Airport less than half an hour away.
• The cost of living is generally lower than in the US or Canada, though the popularity of the region means that Ajijic and other Lakeside real estate is quite high priced for Mexico.
• There are lots of other foreigners: estimates I’ve seen range from 5,000 to 15,000, with more there during the winter than at other times. Besides plenty of people you can meet, this concentration means that many services and retail stores provide for your needs, often in English.
• There’s a yacht club and plenty of golf and tennis.
• The Lake Chapala Society makes it easy for newcomers to make friends, learn Spanish, take classes, use the library, and much more.

found the area still to have the flavor of Mexico, though seeing foreigners everywhere was an adjustment after spending most of my time in less touristed parts of Mexico. But the Mexicans I met here were interesting and often spoke good English.

Other Lakeside Towns

San Antonio Tlayacapan, where we stayed for a few months, and San Juan Cosala,  where we live,  are small towns adjacent to Ajijic. Chapala and Jocotepec are larger towns, also on the northern shore of Lake Chapala. All are worth exploring, whether on a vacation or in looking for a place to live.

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