Lake Chapala

Lake Chapala, Mexico’s largest lake, is 30 miles south of Guadalajara (map). The Chapala area boasts a perfect climate year-round, which explains why some 12,000 North American and European retirees live there. Maddy wanted to check it out for future reference (also one of the reasons we went to San Miguel de Allende, another popular retirement spot).

We got directions to the Camionera Vieja, the old bus station, from the young woman at our hotel desk, who kindly stopped blow-drying her hair to answer our questions. It was just a few blocks away. Before the bus left the station, a guy walked up and down the aisle hawking some kind of miracle salve very loudly and boisterously, like a bad TV ad on Univision. I cringed. But Maddy, being friendlier and more curious, asked to see a jar. It smelled like BENGAY. She bought it for I think 10 pesos, about a dollar. I wondered aloud why this guy got to get on the bus and not someone selling churros, for instance, as on another bus we’d taken. So Maddy asked the guy in front of us how this worked. Turns out that vendors can board at the discretion of the bus driver. I don’t know how he decides or how the vendors persuade him, but it’s his choice.

We ended up talking to the guy in front of us for most of the ride. He was a mechanic who lived in Chapala and he’d come out to Guadalajara by bus to pick up a car part. Too bad the bus’s video speaker was just above my head, making it hard for me to keep up with much of the conversation. But this is how Maddy practices Spanish – by talking to everybody, and it’s both good practice and a great way to get to know something about the people and places where you’re traveling. He got off ahead of us and Maddy gave him the miracle salve for his recent soccer injury.

[Maddy spoons fresh cilantro on her beef birria; Chapala, Mexico; Mar. 30.]

In the town of Chapala, we stopped at a taco stand that had great birria (the beef kind, not the goat) – a kind of spicy stewed beef. Then we wandered into the municipal center looking for a bathroom, and found an entire stairwell covered in a wonderful mural done by a local Jalisco artist named Efren Gonzalez (photo on left). Finally, we made it down to the lake itself, which is beautiful but sadly being choked by hyacinth and pollution. In 2004, the Global Nature Fund named it Threatened Lake of the Year (this link may be flaky; other info here).

To be continued…

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[A heron looks out on Lake Chapala.]

Comments

[Ernesto Priego]

Hey, that Maddy is a brave woman! ;)

Love your blog!

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[leslee]

Braver than I am!

Y gracias. :-)

[mlsmexico]

The lake is back a little higher than when you took that photo. Thank goodness; however I still wouldn't eat anything that came out of it. Lead, mercury, and other contaminents abound.

[leslee]

Thanks for the update. Nice to know the lake's higher. I hope someday they can get it cleaned up.

[Fred Habacht]

I wish you had mentioned Jocotopec...on the lake further towards the end. Now the governmental center for many lakeside villages. Fewer Americans and Canadians and less expensive than Ajijic. The lake is still poluted but they had sprayed to keep the Lirio controled with mixed results.

[leslee]

Well, Fred, I would have had to have heard of Jocotepec to have mentioned it! But thanks for informing us. If I ever get back to the area, I'll check it out.