I recently returned from a wonderful trip down memory lane. My 40th high school reunion near San Jose, California allowed me to reconnect with friends I hadn’t seen in 40 years. The reunion was held where my new grandson lives, and besides getting reacquainted with Tyler, I spent 3 days with life-long friends tramping through […]
Continue ReadingIn Mexico, the bus, sooner or later, goes almost everywhere. And the cost is low. And there might be free entertainment, maybe an ancient dropout from a mariachi band or a youngster trying to transport a small pig in a big box. We sometimes ride the bus from Jocotepec to Chapala to stay in touch […]
Continue ReadingIn the early years of the 21st century, the beautiful Mexican town of Sayula had a wildly fluctuating gringo population. Half of it was lost in one day — when Paul and Debbie Katz moved to Chapala. It doubled 10 months later when they returned. Don Sellers was the stable 25 percent. He’s there and […]
Continue ReadingCalendar of Mexico’s Religious Days and Festivals ** Mandatory Paid Holiday Red = National Holiday GREEN = Religious Wednesday, January 1, 2020 Jan 1 Año Nuevo – New Year’s Day ** Jan 1 Mes dedicado al Santismo Nombre de Jesús […]
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Answers are easy. Why Mexico? Weather, adventure, costs. How much does it cost? More than it did but still less than many places. Bottom line is mostly determined by lifestyle. Is it safe? Yes and no, often depending on where you go and what you do when you get there. Health care? Food? Quirky laws? […]
Continue ReadingImmediately after Ethel Chestnut chucked her old human-resources administrator job in Chicago, she began to sell almost everything. A few short weeks later she jumped on a plane and headed to the tropical mountains of southern Mexico, to Chapala, near Mexico’s largest lake, el Lago de Chapala. Ethel had passed through the town two years earlier […]
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At age seventy-five, Peter Larson gave away or threw out most of his old life, packed up what was left into a few boxes, got into his old red Pontiac and drove south, to Mexico, to begin a new life. It was in late spring, toward the end of the dry season in the tropical […]
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Lauded as the most Spanish of Mexican colonial cities, thanks to a century-old historical preservation code requiring all downtown buildings to maintain original facades, Morelia is the most comfortable Mexican city I know. English is widely understood (Michoacan’s leading export is its citizens), European style abounds, but the flavor of colonial Mexico has adapted to […]
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In June I saw the first indications of rain. Clouds from the northeast began building in the late afternoons before dissolving halfway across the lake. I spent most days in my office, in front of the fan, working on projects and dodging Chuya. “¡Mira!” she grunted one afternoon, summoning me to the front part of the […]
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Often, when we think of starving children, we’re thinking about Central Africa or parts of India or even remote areas of South America. But Mexico has its share of the poor, as close by as the Chapala area. Some children are, in fact, so impoverished as to border on that critical brink of lack of […]
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