Green Mountains, Lights Out and Hermann Goes for a Wild Walk

Since we've moved here, we've been told repeatedly "oh, wait til the rains start!".  Everyone who lives here year round continually gripes about the oppressive heat in May.  O.K., I realize that many people are suffering right now with temps near 100 or much worse and that most of us wouldn't classify 90 degree days with low humidity like we have here in May as "oppressive" but something happens to people when they live in a mild climate year round.  They seem to expect perfect temps as the norm.

Well, as promised by mid=June the rains have started.  They have started to cool off the "high" daytime temps and evenings are wonderful, muy refresco.  We took the picture below during one of our walks around town soon after we arrived.

Yesterday we took this picture from our mirador.  You can see how the mountains are starting to really green up.  Some people describe it the mountains in mid-summer as looking like giant heads of broccoli.  

With the rainy season, comes a not so pleasant surprise.  All the rains tend to send scorpions into the houses.  We've been vigilant after all the stories we've heard (including one man who had the unpleasant surprise of having a scorpion crawl up into the roll of toilet paper....and he didn't find it until he had already used the paper, with the scorpion in it, for it's intended purpose).  But after nearly two months we hadn't seen a single one so were starting to get comfortable, until Friday.  Matt  found this little guy hanging out by our washer/dryer.  Evidently our housekeeper sprays something to kills bugs during her weekly visit, because every bug that makes it's way in our house is dead or dying by the time we see it.  And the stuff must work on scorpions as well, because this little guy was on pretty much done for.  He is small, but w'ere told the little ones have the most toxic venom.

My favorite neighbor is little Camila,  She's four years old and lives in a series of little shacks right next door to us.  This is normal in Ajijic....and pretty much anywhere in Mexico.  You'll have some beautiful homes, and then right next door the most humble of homes.  That doesn't mean they aren't good neighbors.....at least most of the time.  Little Camila loves to go for walks with Herm and me.  When we're shopping,  I will usually pick up little gifts like coloring books, bubbles and little toys, for her and her 6 year old brother Ubaldo.  Camila loves to come over and visit....usually she'll have something for me as an excuse to come over - like flowers she picked or some cookies.  It's fun for her to play out on our terrace and put her feet in the fountain and she absolutely loves our mirador with the hammock chairs.

Well, last week we received our electric bill.  No post office here, instead the utilities have someone that walks up and down the streets of the village and drops off the bills at every house.  We received two bills:  one was for mid-February thru mid-April and the second from mid-April thru mid-June.  We arrived on May 3rd so the only bill we had any responsibility for was the April/June one.  It was a bit higher than I expected (about $200 USD for the two month period) but not too outrageous.  But the earlier bill, was very high, about $500 USD for two months, and for much of that time no one had been living in our house.  This immediately got the attention of Coco,  our property manager and she sent over our two handymen to check it out.  Didn't take long.  Sweet little Camila's family was swiping our electricity.  They had a wire strung from our power pole over to their homes.  My theory why the February/April bill was so high was that it was probably cold here and they needed space heaters.  The handymen called  Coco and she said "call CFE".  The handymen said that would result in a $40,000 peso fine for Camila's family (about $3,600 USD) and someone might be arrested.  Matt asked them not to do this, so the second option was to talk to them and then disconnect the wire.  No one was home so our handymen just disconnected and left it at that.  Later that evening the wire was reconnected.  At this point Coco was definitely calling CFE.  We talked to one of our other neighbors who speaks excellent English about the problem and he said he'd talk to them.  Well the result was that they did disconnect before CFE came out to check on the problem, but the result is that all of Camila's family is in the dark.  We both feel terrible about this when we look down from our mirador and see our neighb ors navigating around their series of shacks just using flashlights.  Hopefully they'll figure out how to get their own electricity soon.

Saturday we went to lunch with a couple we met who live in San Juan Cosala, a little town about 20 minutes from us.  Had a great time and Vern and Kathleen did a wonderful job showing us around that area.  We had lunch at a great Mexican place in their village and then we ended up having dessert at a restaurant in the hills that looks out over the lake.  Very elegant!

And then there was Hermann's wild walk!  On day last week we started out for our normal morning walk.  Sometimes we head east and stay in a very residential area; other times we go to the west and walk down to the plaza.  This day was a plaza walk.  On the way to the plaza we pass a carnaceria (meat shop).  There are always several very large dogs hanging around outside the carnaceria as the butcher always throws scraps to the dogs each morning.  One dog we've seen there often is a huge great dane.  No problem, as he's always very friendly to both me and Herm.  As we neared the carnaceria that morning I saw the great dane and he immediately headed right to us....tail wagging.  He greeted Herm and they did their sniffing thing and the great dane walked on by....and that's when it got interesting.  He came up behind us and grabbed the leash out of my hand.  He started dragging poor Herm around the plaza like he was a toy.  No way Herm could keep up with those long legs so he just kind of got drug along.  The kids started yelling "Paco! Paco!" so I assume that was the dog's name and then the butcher came running out yelling at the dog as well.  But he was having too much fun to stop.  I managed to catch up with them and grabbed the leash but couldn't get it out of Paco's mouth...and he thought I wanted to play tug or war.  We were getting no where.  I finally decided to just unhook Herm's collar; once I'd done that Paco started to run off with his new treasure with the butcher chasing him.  Paco soon decided the leash was no fun without Herm or me at the other end so he soon dropped it and the butcher brought it back to me.  From now on....no more walks past the carnaceria!

What's it Like to Live in Mexico?

Since we started planning our retirement and announced our plan to spend an extended amount of time in Mexico, the first thing most people said was "isn't that dangerous?"  Others worried about our health.  Others just thought we were crazy to leave the comforts of home.

Well, after six weeks in the Lake Chapala area here's what I think.

Nice Surprise during a Walk through our Village

Life here seems very normal.  Very rarely do we absolutely need to speak Spanish, most people who work in the restaurants and larger stores speak very good English.  If we want to cook dinner at home, we can find everything we need at this grocery store two blocks away......or the Walmart super center which is about 1 1/2 miles from our home.  But we prefer buying from the markets.  We can walk through and get an amazing amount of beautiful fruit and vegetables at a very reasonable price.  There are two butcher shops that I can easily walk to.  If we want to eat out, no problem.  Tons of very nice and affordable restaurants.  Most we can walk to, but we never drive more than 15 minutes to eat out, no need to.


We have a filtration system at the house, so we drink the water out of the tap. Our cable t.v. has gone out several times....but never for more than an hour or so.  Our wireless internet was driving both of us nuts!  The connection was very erratic and seemed to be out about 30% of the time.  After weeks of suffering, we talked to our property manager about this.  Matt knew the router needed to be replaced but we weren't sure how to do this.  She made one call to TelMex, our provider.  They agreed to replace the modem, but we needed to pick it up.  We were prepared for the worst!  Long lines, confusion over our account, language barriers.  Matt insisted I go with him to serve as his translator.....not that my Spanish is great, just much better than his.  We walked in, asked the man at the kiosk at the front of the store if he spoke English, he said no but asked for our names.  We gave him our names and showed him our old router.  And he gave us a new router....simple as that.  We were in that store about 2 minutes.

There are two golf courses within a reasonable distance from our house, both are only nine holes.  Matt has been playing two times a week.  I don't think they are nearly as nice as courses he was used to in Kansas City, and probably a bit more expensive.  But on the other hand, here you can play seven days a week, 12 months a year.

There seems to be plenty of entertainment.  It's easy to find a restaurant with live entertainment, especially on Friday and Saturday nights.  We splurged last Friday and had a nice dinner out, and the restaurant had a guitarist who knew  all the old music we liked to listen to:  Beetles, Clapton, James
Taylor, Cat Stevens.  Was a good night.  For dinner we had a stuffed portabella mushroom appetizer, shrimp dish for Matt, salad for me, two glasses of wine (for me), Coke for Matt, two desserts and coffee.  La cuenta was about $500 pesos (or about $45 USD).  Not bad for date night.  There is live theater here that we've heard good things about but haven't been.  There's a Mexican festival in our pueblo Saturday night with Mexican dancers, food and Margaritas.  On Sundays there are free dance lessons at the Plaza.  They're teaching Danza, which is a sexy Cuban dance.  We watched.....didn't participate....but it was quite a show. There are two movie theaters near us, one we can easily walk to.  The admissions is $40 pesos (or about $3.50).  Wednesday is BOGO at the theater, so $3.50 for both of us to watch a recently released movie.  Last week we saw Identity Theft.  We bought two large drinks and shared a large popcorn for another $50 pesos.  Night at the movie, with snacks, for less than $10.  This week we want to see the Halley Berry movie "The Call".

We love our house.....but we've come to realize we seriously pay more for rent than is necessary.  For $1,000 a month we have a two bedroom house with a rooftop mirador, beautiful garden and separate casita, including housekeeper and gardener once a week.  Compared with the apartment we rented in Kansas for $925 a month, this seemed like a steal.  Plus we have no heating and cooling costs here.  Just electricity to run lights, t.v. and the washing machine.  Gas for the stove and to heat water.  We have a gas clothes dryer, but don't use it.  We have a clothes lines and use it instead.  But then we started talking to other extranjeros (ex-pats) who rent.  Seems like you can easily rent an amazing house here for $500 to $700 a month.  An apartment similar to what we rented in Kansas for $925 a month would be about $250 a month here.  Oh, well.....we knew that if we hit town and looked for a place after we arrived, we'd probably get a better deal.  But we both liked the idea of having a nice place reserved for us and ready for us when we arrived.  No surprises!

All that being said, here's what our last few days were like.

Drive to Mazemitla

Friday is housekeeper day and neither one of us like to sit around on our butts watching our little pregnant housekeeper clean our house.  Makes us feel very decadent and lazy.  We decided to take a day trip up into the mountains to a little pueblo called Mazemitla which is about a two hour drive from Ajijic.  Was a very nice drive, the road seemed very safe and in good condition, although a bit narrow.   Mazemitla was fun, very pretty little pueblo.  We shopped a bit, seems they are very proud of their fresh cheeses, caramel and a liqueur they make from local nutsl.  We bought some of each.  Had an ok lunch at little taqueria and then headed home.

Streets of Mazemitla

The Center of every Mexican Pueblo....a church

Reflective Matt at the Fiesta

On Saturday night there was a fiesta in the Ajijic plaza to raise money for a sculpture for the plaza.  They served real Mexican food (tamales, tostados and posole) which I enjoyed, but Matt not so much.  We discovered that the only Mexican food he really likes is Tex-Mex....all covered in gooey cheese.  There was a strange little dancer there, a man in drag with an awful mask, but sure it was part of Mexican folklore.  The mariachi band followed and we were surprised to see that one of our neighbors was the star performer.  From our mirador, we can hear him practicing several nights a week.  To be honest, he sounded much better with the band.

Our Neighbor on the Left

Sunday was Fathers Day and there were festivites planned on the square to honor Mexican dads.  This event was definitely geared more to the Mexicans than to the ex-pats.  As usual, nothing starts early.  It was scheduled to start at 8:00 after the dance lessons, but the dance lessons never start on time so they didn't end until almost 9:00.  Then the Fathers Day festivities started.  The band was very loud and out of tune......kids were running everywhere.  We only lasted until about 9:30 but the party was in full swing when we left. Here's a video of just a bit of that night....just to give you an idea how loud an crazy it really was.

There is one Thai restaurant in town and it has been closed since we arrived as the owners went back to Thailand for vacation.  They were scheduled to reopen on June 1st but then a sign appeared on the door saying the reopening was scheduled for June 17th.  Well, that was yesterday and I was determined to go.  We walked down about 6:00 and the were still closed!  Someone working inside told us they'd reopen Miercoles (Wednesday)...so I guess I wait a few more days.  We ended up eating at Ajijic Tango....and not sure why it took us so long to go there!  It's probably the most popular restaurant in town, and I now know why.  We both decided on filet mignon.  It was actually less expensive to get the filet mignon for two rather than individual steaks, and it was a whopping 26 ounces.  It looked like a roast!  And this was the best steak I've ever eaten.  We made it through half of it and brought the rest home for dinner another night.  Total tab for our steak dinner, including wine for me and a nice tip for the server was $300 pesos - or about $25 USD.  Unbelievable.

After dinner we walked down to the malecon and it was so beautiful.  Just a few families in the park, and some kids strumming their guitars.  I took another short video, just to compare this mellow scene was the madness from the night before.

And then nearly every night we watch the sun set from our mirador.  This is Matt's chance for his cigar of the day and my opportunity for a glass of wine.  Not a bad way to wrap up our day!