¡Maldito Internet!

I promised you the Tamara's birthday post on Tuesday, but we lost our internet before I could compose a post, and never got it back again, even though the hotel manager was as helpful and as confounded by our lack of success as he could possibly be. So an afternoon thundershower, a power outage, and the subsequent disappearance of any possible connection put a hitch in my trip coverage, and a day of sheer exhaustion after getting back did for the rest.

So you're about to get the last few highlights of Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday in one last post with lots of photos. ¡Disfrutate!

This is Tamara in her birthday outfit Monday morning at La Casa del Café. Muy Glamourosa!

Happy Birthday, Miss T!

Later we visited the grounds of the Lake Chapala Society , a volunteer-run nonprofit that serves the local expat community, raises money every year to sponsor local schoolchildren, send graduates to university, and other useful things. I think it has a lot to do with these folks that relations between the local community and the expats have remained cordial and mutually beneficial from 1955 to present. The grounds are really beautiful, as you can see here:

Yes, there are koi...

...and a nice place to have lunch or just pass the time. Which we did.

They also have libraries of English-language books and DVDs, teach classes in English,  Spanish, art, and many other subjects, host clubs, lectures, and TED talks, sponsor exhibitions, show films, etc., etc. This is why so many would-be expats aim themselves at Ajijic despite the rents being higher here than in surrounding villages. This is where the resources exist to learn how to fit gracefully into their new lives.

Monday night we went out to birthday dinner at Ajijic Tango, where it was a bit dark for pictures, but you can take my word for it that the staff gathered around and sang "Feliz Cumpleaños" to the birthday girl over a piece of chocolate cake and a candle.

Tuesday, we saw a few sights we hadn't explored before.

This wall of skulls, each representing a departed Ajijic resident, was created by Efrén Gonzalez, whose studio is on the other side of it. On the 2nd of November, once it's completely dark, each tile is illuminated by a votive candle.

I had to get some shots of this parrot because of its resemblance to our very own Miss Birdface. It seems to be a conure, but not a Sun Conure.

No day in Ajijic is complete without some time spent sitting in the Plaza, so on Tuesday we did a bit of that, and a gentleman named Delfino came by our table at Café Black & White to sing a very sweet rendition of "Llorona" and then at my request, "Cien Años."

Tuesday we went to the shores of Lake Chapala to enjoy the sunset. 

The next morning we'd be up early arranging for Mario Medeles Orozco, driver extraordinaire (332 622 6690), to take us to the airport outside Guadalajara.

And that was the end of a really wonderful week. I was sorry to leave, but glad to come home.

Here's a bonus photo of a little jewelry shop on Calle Morelos between Hotel la Estancia and La Casa del Café.

Es Agradable no Hacer Nada

...So that's what we did.

But first, in case you weren't jealous enough of our morning lattes at La Casa del Café, here's some extra incentive:

Sunday is a perfect day for finding a bench on the Plaza and vegging out. We got a pretty late start, so we ended up doing a lot of that, and a lot of shopping at the vendors and craftspeople who make up a respectable-sized shopping center there on any Sunday.

San Andrés Apóstol sits on one side of the Plaza. Tamara got right up to the front door and absolutely nothing was struck by lightning. I just report the facts.

We had a late lunch at Merendero Lake Burger. 

The OTHER Giant Pelican of Ajijic

And since it was a LATE lunch, we washed it down with a Margarita Mezcal.

At the back of the restaurant is this sign:

"In this space we are positive. We help one another, respect one another, work together. We are friendly. We communicate with one another, we have fun together, and more than anything we are a team working for you."

The service there really is extraordinary. Pretty nearly everyone here is friendly or at least courteous, but some places make you feel like you belong there. This is one of them.

When we went out for a late dinner, we found almost every place closed as of 7. The Tapatios had gone home, and the streets seemed almost deserted without them.

After wandering around aimlessly for a while, we headed on back to Merendero. I had a cream of Portobello soup, which was heavenly, and a salad with pears and pecans and bleu cheese, ditto. Tamara had a chicken burger roughly the size of my head. The only way to get it eaten was with a knife and fork.

Tomorrow you'll see Tamara looking stunning on her birthday, the Lake Chapala Society, and a wall of calaveras (¡spooky!).

Your bonus photo

¡Tapatios!

On weekends, Ajijic welcomes a few thousand visiting Tapatios--people from Guadalajara. Some own weekend homes here, while others pay weekend rents or stay with relatives. They shop and eat and swell the streets and the economy. Our end of Calle Morelos is closed to traffic, and come evening, restaurants and bars fill the streets with tables and chairs. Bands play, people dance, vendors vend, and the noise level rises. I have no Saturday evening photos to prove this, as I went out without my camera, but it was a whole different town out there. The fireworks--something along the line of cherry bombs--don't usually begin in earnest until after midnight.

I have not forgotten I promised you large fowl. There will be photos of large fowl down the page.

We started the day more quietly with breakfast at La Casa del Café, and a walk to the Plaza. While we were sitting on a bench watching Mexico walk by, I saw a woman approaching whose face I knew well--Patricia Walker. Pat has been writing a blog about living in Ajijic for about 10 years, and we had been planning to meet up Monday at the spa in San Juan Cosalá, where she goes to swim. She recognized us from pictures I sent her, so we sat down to chat.

Before we got up again, she had invited me to consider house-sitting for her for three weeks next summer when she goes to the States to visit her family. We took a taxi to her casita and I got to see the digs, the garden, and the Joe-like little dog I'd been reading about for months on her blog.
I told her I'd seriously consider her offer of living rent-free in Ajijic for three weeks  next year.

Tamara and I had been planning to take a taxi to the nearest farmacia and see if they'd refill a medication she needed, so after doing a little more shopping, we did just that. Farmacia Guadalajara is a sizeable drug and grocery store not far from where Pat lives, and they were happy to sell Tamara the pills she needed. Mission accomplished. Back to the Plaza, where we discovered too late that she'd left her shopping bag in the cab.

The cab drivers mobilized to find the driver and the bag. "If you left it in the taxi, it will still be in the taxi," they assured her, and it would have been, except a family had gotten into the cab right after us with lots of shopping bags, and when they left they must have mistaken T's bag for one of theirs. Major bummer.

We went to lunch at the Peacock Garden, which was exactly what it sounds like.

Customers eat in a garden where peacocks and chickens wander up to your table to see what you have for them.

Or sometimes they cop a quick nap.

In the evening we went back to the Malecon for a while...

...then walked back up and ate at Pasta Trenta again. Dinners are quite a leisurely affair around here. You don't wait long for a server, but your order may take noticeably longer to arrive than it does North of the Border, or N.O.B. as the expats call it. After you eat, nobody will ever make a move to get you out of your chair, even when they're quite obviously closing up the place around your ears. Until you ask for la cuenta, you can stay right where you are. "They might be closing," a waiter told us the other night, "but I'm not closing."

Tomorrow's story: Sunday in the Plaza, mostly.

Here's a bonus photo: A Galeana, or African Tulip tree.

Las Matematicas son Difíciles. ¡Vamos a Compras! *

Yesterday was pretty low key compared to climbing buried pyramids, falling off walls, and drinking pajarete for breakfast. This time we broke our fast at La Casa del Café:

Doesn't look too impressive from the street, but it's wonderful on the inside.

When we just could NOT sit and sip our excellent huge lattes in Mexican pottery cups for another minute, we walked around the immediate neighborhood.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

What's bigger than the giant seagull of Inverness?

Being Friday, it was already starting to get crowded on Calle Morelos, our home street.

It was still pretty mellow on the Malecon...

...especially for a casual fisherman.

A park runs the length of the walk along the lakeside, with a skate park, a fountain, a playground, and public restrooms. On that subject, a word to the wise traveler: bring 5 pesos (about US25c) Someone waits outside the restroom to collect your fee and hand you a carefully folded and fairly generous allocation of papel hygienico. There is none of this vital resource to be found inside, so you'll find it 5 pesos well spent. Many restrooms in Mexico charge for admission, but most of those do provide toilet paper. No matter where you roam, it pays to be flexible.

Somewhere between breakfast and dinner, we did some shopping, which is harder than it looks, Barbie to the contrary*. That exertion demanded a siesta before going out for the evening.

We met Jak and Karawynn for dinner. For those to whom those names are unfamiliar, these are friends of a few of us who moved to Ajijic five years ago. They now own a house on the west side of town, and are still pretty thrilled to be here. They miss some conveniences, but the fact that they can afford to live makes up for a LOT.

We ate at Pasta Trenta, not far from our hotel. Very good food.  

We walked back to the hotel, and much as in the daytime the people sitting out on their porches or strolling along the street offered a friendly greeting. It's pretty rare to pass by someone who doesn't acknowledge your presence. It's just the way they do things around here.

Tomorrow's story will include large fowl, chance meetings, and adventures in taxis. Don't touch that dial!

Guachimontones

Here are the photos of the hotel I promised you yesterday:

Are you ready for this...?

It's BIGGER on the INSIDE!

The patio from our room

Also the patio

The bar

Chapter One
In Which We Are NOT Left Behind

As you read yesterday, our day at Guachimontones almost didn't happen. We were supposed to meet the tour car at 7:45, and we got our unexpected wake-up at nearly 8:00. The driver said he'd pick us up here in 10 minutes, so we broke a few speed laws getting dressed and out the door before the car arrived.

The other two tourists were a pair of German ladies. Hannah not only lives in Palm Beach, which is very much better than anywhere we might possibly live, but she provided us with an itinerary of every Hilton she and her sister Heidi (I'm not making that up) had stayed in between Belgium and Guadalajara. Of course that was after she berated us for wasting an hour and a half of her time. Since the car wasn't leaving until 8:00, we actually wasted about 19 minutes of her time, but I didn't want to get started with her. Heidi lives in Germany. She is a human being whose only great fault is being Hannah's sister.

Our first stop was in a tiny village up the road, where we stopped at a farm shed with three cows and half a dozen people sitting around with styrofoam cups, drinking and chatting amiably. In the morning, you can find a place like this along the side of the highway every mile or so. This is where you get your morning cup of pajarete. It goes like this:

On a little table are instant coffee, sugar, chocolate powder, vanilla extract, and sugar cane alcohol. Not rum, exactly, but rum's slightly rougher cousin who wears his Luckies rolled up in his t-shirt sleeve. You put in your ingredients to taste, take your 16-oz cup to a man with a cow, and he fills it up with milk from the source. The resultant beverage--foamy, sweet, warm, and pleasantly alcoholic--will make anyone's morning better. After drinking mine, I was even feeling slightly charitable toward Hannah, but it didn't last

Cowboy

Cowgirl

Chapter Two
In Which I Climb  a Pyramid

So after seeing an hour and a half worth of Mexican scenery, we arrived at Guachimontones. The civilization who lived here 3,000 years ago left several round step-pyramids, only one of which--along with some sites of homes and temples--has been excavated. Most structures are arranged in concentric circles. There are also two ball courts, as a ball game was the way to settle legal and social disputes.

The largest and tallest pyramid hasn't been excavated yet, so it's a big hill covered in trees and shrubs, with quite a rough and rocky and narrow path running up to the top. I climbed it with Hermán and also Hannah, who pissed me off yet again when on our way down she stood in the middle of the path and made a couple of dozen schoolchildren climb up the hill around her instead of stepping two feet out of her way. I think my pajarete must have been wearing off, and there were no cows in sight.

Pyramid--schoolchildren added for scale

This is not the wall I fell off and hurt my knee

But I did fall off a wall and hurt my knee. It's mostly okay now except for a colorful bruise about as big as my palm, and it dislikes stairs even more than it did 2 days ago, but yesterday it sported a goose egg the size of a baby head, and I consider its absence a decided improvement.

After leaving Guachimontones, Hermán took us to a place called Monte Carlo for a late lunch:

Chapter Three

In Which I Feel Superior to Hannah

After waiting five minutes for Hannah to perfect her custom order in English to a waiter she knew damned well didn't speak it and having it patiently translated by Hermán while she continued to modify and perfect it, I straight up ordered a Caesar salad. And damned if I didn't feel just a bit superior, even if I don't live in Palm Springs.

And then home, and later a walk down to the lake to have dinner at one of the lakeside restaurants. Oddly enough, it wasn't more expensive for being almost on the water.

And that was our day. Wish you were here. Possibly you do too.

Day 1: Walk, Eat, Sleep (and sleep in)

After an overnight flight from Seattle and 2 1/2 hours in the Mexico City airport, we arrived in Guadalajara a bit after 0900. We took a taxi to our hotel in Ajijic (La Estancia,which is lovely, but you're going to wait for a photo of it 'cause The Day I've Had*. Here's a couple of shots of the view from our front door.

So very little sleep and some walking around, half of that uphill, a good dinner at Ajijic Tango, and too many trips in one day up two flights of stairs at 5000 feet, and I could not bear the thought of going back down to the office to get the password. I flaked out.

So here's the Caprese Salad that cost me about $5US or a little less at Ajijic Tango. Yes, those are capers, and I may never make another Caprese without them. I had heard from several travelers that this is one of the best places in town to eat, and I must agree.

This is the Kiosko, the gazebo-like structure in the center of the Plaza in the center of town--el centro del centro: 

And below is another view of the Plaza...

And another. It looks good from any angle.

So we walked, we ate, we turned in early and woke up late. That is to say we woke up to a knock on the door and a man with a phone in his hand connected to one Hermán, the man who was driving us to Guachimontones--the pyramids at Teuchitlan. Only we weren't at the tour stop. We weren't even out of bed. The day did get better, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear the whole tale complete with Vicario, a disagreeable German woman, pyramids, and some cows.