Lake Chapala

RICK’S TRAVELS
Lake Chapala, Mexico revisited
GOLDEN, COLORADO
Written by Rick Cowlishaw
January 26 to February 10, 2007

Rick Cowlishaw is a semi-retired architect who lives in Golden, Colorado, enjoys traveling and sharing his experiences with friends. I hope you enjoy reading this newsletter and find it as much fun as I had in living it. 303 216-9665, rcowlishaw@comcast.net
Lake Chapala from town of Chapala

Introduction
We had a lot of snow this year in Colorado, and it remained cold enough to retain the snow for several months. We all needed some relief from the cold and snow. It seemed like a good time to get warm. We left behind our snowy world and headed south of the border to Lake Chapala in Guadalajara.

Wanda and I went to Lake Chapala a couple of years ago and enjoyed it very much. We decided to revisit the Lake Chapala area and stay in Ajijic, a small town on the north shore of Lake Chapala. The north shore is considered more desirable, since it is close to Guadalajara, it is sunnier than the south shore and there is a little less cloud cover and rain.
We rented a two bedroom place for 2 weeks, and invited our friends down. Dan and Debbie August came down for the first week, and Jim and Beth Davis came for the second week.


Rick and Wanda’s snowy home

Lake Chapala is separated from Guadalajara by a ring of mountains, which prevent pollution of the big city reaching the lake area. The lake slightly improves the weather, making it more uniform than the weather in Guadalajara, 30 miles away.

Ajijic
Ajijic is quite charming, with narrow cobblestone streets, narrow sidewalks, and buildings stacked side by side one against the other. Most of the homes are behind high walls, with small gardens. Our rented home is on the west side of Ajijic, down a quiet side street, yet near to most everything. The town has a delightful town square, with raised planters, a gazebo, and large wood sculptures.

There is an ex-patriot population of US and Canadian citizens of about 4000 in a town of about 20,000. The ex-pats help the town, employing many of the local Mexicans. The restaurants and small shops cater to the ex-pats and tourists, providing gourmet meals and quality goods. The Mexicans themselves are quite friendly and helpful, all without the hustle of timeshares in places like Puerto Vallarta.

Getting there
Frontier airlines offer a direct flight on Fridays and Sundays from Denver to Guadalajara, leaving in the morning about 10:30 AM and arriving in the afternoon about 2:30 PM. Since it is the only flight, we met Dan and Debbie as they came in from Seattle and flew the rest of the way with them.

Wanda and Debbie in Route

Guadalajara
We decided to stay at the Francis Hotel Friday night. It was a great choice, since we wanted to be in the old section of Guadalajara, and this hotel has history and charm. The Francis was built 400 years ago and is surrounded by buildings of about the same age. We got one of the penthouse suites (2 Bedrooms, 2 baths, living, dining and kitchen) which are huge with a gigantic terrace. You better be into walking up stairs, all 166 of them.
View from Our Terrace
La Chata

Dinner
We and Dan and Debbie went out walking, had dinner at La Chata. This is a really unique place to eat, as the kitchen area is to the front of the restaurant, totally open to people coming in. You can see everything being prepared, and choose the meal you think is the yummiest. It is a popular place, inexpensive, with good food.

Lobby of the Francis
We went walking around after dinner. The old section has a lot of mall type streets, lots of shops. We heard some terrific music coming from somewhere, and searched for the source. We went up two flights of stairs, then into a nightclub. The nightclub was in the corner of the building, with continuous balconies and awnings on the two corner sides. I was surprised that there is no way to close up the nightclub. These sides overlooked the street below with no glass doors. The climate is very mild year around.

There was a live salsa band playing “we-got –to-move” music. Wanda and I danced several songs that really went on a long time. It was very inexpensive, no cover and $1.50 a beer. This dancing was a test for my new two and one-half month old hip!

Our House
Wanda and Rick stayed two weeks at Casa Preciosa (408) 705-2356 our home away from home. It was a delightful home, perfect for our needs. I booked the home from Saturday to Saturday, then later booked the airline tickets which had flights Friday and Sunday, but not Saturday. Since we all wanted to stay as long as possible, we flew in on Friday and left on Sunday.

Doors to courtyard at our place
This left us needing a place to stay on Friday night when arriving (Dan and Debbie, Rick and Wanda) and on Saturday when leaving (Jim and Beth, Rick and Wanda). That is when we stayed in Guadalajara. If that isn’t confusing enough, we all were together Friday and Saturday. We needed a place for a couple to stay each night, since our place only held two couples. We found a lovely Bed and Breakfast for those two nights, so it all worked out very well.

Casa Del Sol Bed and Breakfast

We set up a weekend stay for our friends at Casa Del Sol, a truly beautiful Bed and Breakfast. See www.casadelsolinn.com Dan and Debbie stayed one night at Casa Del Sol and Jim and Beth stayed another night. We even went over and joined them for happy hour!

Camera Mishaps
I ran out of battery power on my camera in the first week, and used Wanda’s camera. Wanda then accidentally deleted all the photos in the second week. We were really bummed! Therefore we don’t have all the photos we took.

Breakfast at La Nueva PosadaA Sunday brunch experience, table under huge rubber plant tree overlooking the lake. It was delightful sitting in the sun after breakfast.

Wanda’s rooster alarm clock
This rooster lived in an enclosed spot close to our home, with no visible means of support, but seemed quite happy being there. Wanda and Debbie spent time chatting with the rooster every time we left home.

Secret Garden
We ate lunch at the Secret Garden every chance we had. It was very delicious fresh vegetarian fare, including their Mango Margarita! It was comfortable sitting out under the umbrella eating superb food and chatting.

“Why don’t they ______?”
Because Mexico is different.
I found myself saying “Why don’t they ….fix the roads, pay for totally free education of their children, do away with toll roads, reduce air pollution, or clean up the sides of the road? Mexico is different than the US, which they have a right to be. They have very low property taxes, which results in very little money to repair existing roads or build new roads. Low property taxes affect new schools, paying for school uniforms, school books, building new roads, cleaning up roads or reducing air pollution. Increasing property taxes would go a long way to helping this, but it is their choice. My guess is that many of the Mexican people could not afford yearly taxes much more than the $100 a year they pay now.


Dining at Pedro’s Gourmet

Pedro’s was a gourmet restaurant where we dined twice with Dan and Debbie. The food was lovely and Pedro was a friendly, entertaining guy. We ate outside when we were there. There is a wood fireplace built into this area for taking off the chill in the evenings. It is under cover, but still an outdoor space.