Party Time

A work in progress

Carol's back yard is a work in progress. This is the tree she had cut and is seaching for a carver to put Tribal faces on the trunks! See the head as an example...

A Woman's Castle

This is the open air room at Carol's Castle. Beautiful!

View from the Mountain Top

A View of the lake from the mountain side.

Scenic Road

A scenic road view of paradise leading home for Carol and Dan

Wall Art 2

Another example of the beautiful wall art at the temple

Wall Art

A colorful example of the art painted on walls in the Mayan temple

A beautiful Wall

Another example of a beautiful wall on the complex

Another Mayan Warrior

Another example of a Mayan Warrior

Landscape scene

Beautiful scenery - must see to believe!

Real Majarachie Band

Great trio entertained us in the restaurant on a beautiful Sunday afternoon at the restaurant of the Mayans.

The Restaurant

This is the finest restaurant around as far as food. Wonderful menu, beautiful view, great food, excellent service, valet parking, a must see before you die experience.

Mayan Temple Entrance

There were two of these guys guarding the entrance to the Mayan Temple and resort. Did I tell you there were hot mineral spring pools that have healing powers available as well as any type of massage you ever dreamed of.

Public Toilets?

Which one would you take? This was interesting enough to go investigate. Simply a bench outside public restrooms. Couldn't resist a picture.

At the Mayan Temple

A huge Mayan Head at the top of the stairs leading to the Temple. A beautiful place to stay or just visit. Has a resort hotel and beautiful restaurant. Great Vacation spot

Mayan Temple

This is a picture of the stairway leading up to a Mayan Temple at the Racquet Club. A beautiful place.

Walmart is Coming!

I was sick at heart to see the sign that Walmart is coming to this quiet little town. As you enter the main road around the lake all you can see is this sight and signs. Some might call this progress. If you know me, I don't. I call it disaster for a beautiful little area.

Supermarket

This was a huge store called Sentano's. Like a walmart or Target it had everything anyone could need. The pastries were very impressive. Dan and I wanted to take some home for us but Carol said no. (She did get some for the new neighbor as a welcome gift and I caught her eating one herself). She got a whole box full of wonderful pieces for $ 2.40. Food is cheap. Mexico produces all their food they need.

Entrance

This stature stands leading into the city. I wish you could see the beautiful red flowers that covered the trees. I didn't know how to read the label on the statue but it was an impressive figure.

Food Vendor

Small plates of tiny fish is a delicacy at Lake Chapala. Not fish strips but the whole fish is deep fried and some are highly seasoned. Each has a lime on top for added zest. One this table is a pile of coconuts for sale also. See the family around the table. Families gathered everywhere together.

Some of the many tents at Lake Chapala

Trying to show the many tents at Lake Chapala with many beautiful crafts and food for sale.

Mexican Baby

One of the many beautiful babies at the festival. Carol loves Mexican babies so I took this picture for Carol. I think the baby couldn't figure out Carol with her blonde white hair.

Mud Man

We could not figure out this man. He was covered in mud and braiding his wet hair. He caught everyone's attention. Maybe that is what he set out to do. He seemed to like me.

Shopping in Town

An example of one of the many shops around the Lake Chapala waterfront.

Dan and Carol at the Catholic Church

Dan and Carol in front of one of the oldest Catholic Churches in Lake Chapala. Mexico is 96% Catholic and the churches are overflowing at each mass. People actually crowed the doors to get in.

Vendors on Lake Chapala

This is a colorful photo of the vendors along the boardwalk at Lake Chapala.

Lake Chapala on Sunday

This is another view of the Lake Chapala boardwalk and the beautiful people of the area

Lake Chapala Waterfront

Traveled to Lake Chapala for the Sunday walk
People everywhere all along the water front. Fun, Fun, Fun We enjoyed the people, food and music everywhere.

Flowers Everywhere

This is a picture of anyone's yard. Flowers everywhere.

Another View of Carol's Home

This is a picture of Carol's beautiful home. She lives in a great community with only six homes. In a gated area with a guard to open the gate, a gardner and a maid. Carol has found her life's dream. No sweat, no dirt, no work, flowers everywhere, can walk to the gym, for coffee, to church. Oh, by the way, cows do wander in through the gate sometime...

A Home for Sale in Ajijiic

Shopping in Ajijiic included finding bargins in homes. An example of the remarkable finds. Three bedrooms, 2 baths, all concrete, no heat nor air but who needs it when the weather is always great! Temperature stays between 65 and 80 year round with zero humidity. Sleep with windows open and soft breezes.

A Great Vacation Place

This is the way to the hotel cottages Carol and Dan went for vacation and stayed two months! Where else can you stay in paradise in a two bedroom cottage w/meals for $ 50.00 a day.

Cobblestone Streets Lead to Great Shopping

Carol leads the way through the narrow cobblestone streets to the best shopping areas downtown Ajijiic.

Green Valley Heaven

This shows a bit of the mountain range in the
beautiful green valley in the city.

This shows a little bit of heaven outside of the restaurant where we went to have breakfast.

Ajijiic is home

Dan and Carol have found a beautiful home in Ajijiic. They share the home with their two wire haired terriors - Rambo and Bentley. I tried to get a picture of both dogs but they were too fast.

Carol and Me

Carol and I at Lake Cahala. This is Mexico's largest lake--60 miles long and 16 miles wide. Will be home to the Pan American Water Games in 2011.

Beautiful Ajiliic

No words can express the beauty of this majestic small town deep in the heart of Mexico. I am going to share some pictures with you... This is my friend Carol and her husband Dan. They found this beautiful little town and fell in love with the peace and beauty. Now they live there.

Destination Day

Finding a great hotel in Matehama, Mexico, Carol and I enjoyed a great gourmet breakfast at the hotel resturant. We highly recommend Las Palmas Mid Way Hotel in this quite remarkable little town which welcomes travelors going into the belly of Mexico. With huge palms and beautiful natural landscaping, the accomodations were great. It rained that night so the car was freshly washed and we didn't worry at all about our precious cargo inside.

We headed out toward the mountains and spent the entire day navigating the winding roads throughout the mountain ranges. Everywhere we looked we saw concrete plants and bolders of rock which were crushed and poured into wonderful works of art everywhere along the way. We lost count of the places where we saw thousands of statues, pillars, clay pots, etc. Harding working artisians were all along the roads winding through many small towns. We could not resist stopping at the wonderous areas when we saw the beautiful and colorful painted ceramics offered at every crossroad of major intersections of the highways. I found a moon with a smile that I could not resist. Carol being the one who could say more than one word in Spanish (she actually knows about four) bargined the price for me.

Going through Guadalara was another adventure. Finally we flagged one of Mexico's finest to ask for help. To our relief, he signaled us to follow him and he stopped traffic for us to stay up with him as he led us for over 20 minutes through the city toward the correct path out of his city and on toward the Lake Cahala area and to our destination. We offered him a generous tip and he refused. With very little spoken communication, he showed us the genuine hospitally that Mexico offers to visitors to their country. We called Dan to tell him to get ready we were home.

Day Two of Travel to Ajijiic

Waking up early on our second day, our first thought was to see if the car was still in one piece and all of Carol's possessions were still there. We stayed at the only motel we could find at the outer edge of San Antonio on the road to the border town of Larado. The motel had not been rated by AAA so it is hard to describe the accomodations. To our relief everything survived the night and we went to breakfast. Carol struck up a conversation with the hotel clerk and confided our fears about the trip into the belly of Mexico. She had received email stories of the horrors of women traveling alone in Mexico. I guess she must have really convinced him that we thought we were about to have our throats cut because he came to our breakfast table with a Bible with passages marked for her to read. That is the biggest difference between the two of us. She attracts a man who bring her a Bible for the trip and I attract men who want to come along for the adventure.

We made it through the border town and entered the inspection station in Mexico about 8:30 a.m. The border guards were not ready for Carol. This is lady with the white hair and clutching her folder with every tidbit of information on her life--copied in triplicate--surely astonished these seasoned professionals. After being led to a brick building behind barbed wire, Carol was asked to push a magic yellow button on a stationary traffic signal type light, we were confused when the light turned green and all the border patrol guys said for us to get in our car and have a good trip. We were prepared to be stripped searched and our car contents all over the parking lot but 0ur luck held up and we didn't have a bit of trouble. Since then, we have been told we would make perfect mules--whatever that means.

The rest of the day was astonishing. If you have never driven through Northern Mexico into the desolate desert area well into the northern areas of the country seeing factories American companies built for profit after NAFTA and seeing the pure poverty of living conditions we saw for the rest of the day. We could hardly contain our astonishment of the harshness of life we saw everywhere. Life is hard for these people and these factories didn't seem to improve that.

Our destination was a town which is known as the mid point of Mexico. After reaching the city of Monterey and getting lost for two and one half hours. I won't bore you with the details of our foolish choice to take a wrong turn to find a clean restroom. After a delightful and good looking local man patiently drawing us a map and getting us back to the right road, we made good time to the town of Matehama which was our destination for the day.

Adventure in Ajijiic, Jalisco Mexico

What a great way to begin a blog--sharing my trip to Ajijiic with my friend Carol. We took over on July 1st by SUV to travel to the southern region of Mexico. The adventure took us through San Antonio where we stayed our first night. We had to find a parking lot to bag the bulbs Carol was determined to take to her new home in Ajijiic where her husband Dan and her two babies Rambo and Bentley were patiently waiting for us. We also felt it smart to hide the treasures she was taking from Atlanta to Mexico to her new home. We were very nervous about crossing the border early the second day. Sorry no pictures - we forgot a camera!