Quirky Ajijic – Week 2

We are truly enjoying our time in Ajijic. I did not realize how energy zapping all the heat we have been in was. Here I feel like a new woman – fresh air, warm sunshine, cool nights. Everywhere there are flowers in bloom, so as each day passes, our walks get more and more colourful.

There are A LOT of dogs here! Fewer dying, stray dogs than we have seen elsewhere, but everyone seems to have several and often they are off leash. This has made for numerous interesting encounters as you never know when the dogs are going to fight, play, sniff, or have a pissing match. There are many quirky things here that just make us smile. For instance, each day as we walk Annie, we pass house after house with pet dogs, and the cacophony begins as each and every dog we pass goes nuts barking. They strain to get their heads under the door, through the bars of the balcony, or...and this is just quirky... they bark down at us from the roof! Yes indeed, Ajijic is full of dogs on roofs! (sounds like a Dr. Seuss book!)

Most of the houses in Ajijic are surrounded by tall concrete walls, artistically painted and with lovely metal gates. Inside the tall walls are large courtyards and the houses. These tall walled fences make for some quirky tree sightings. It is not unusual to see that the wall has been built around the tree branches.

The walls are also home to a lot of street art, making the town seem happy and vibrant.

Ajijic is a very walkable town. The cobbled streets start at the base of the mountain, a thousand feet up and run down to the lake. They are very rough and very skinny.

Needless to say, parking is at a premium.

Ajijic Makes the Short List

I certainly see the attraction people have to Ajijic. Every day the beauty of the lush mountains amaze me. Today we took the dog for a walk up the mountain. It was a lovely, refreshing walk; so nice to be walking in cool, crisp air again.

We feel so energized to be out of the heat and humidity of the last 8 months. From the mountain pathway there were stunning views of the lake, and strangely, a shrine and three crosses – as in crucifixion crosses – stood alongside the path.

Each morning we spend 2-3 hours walking around the cobbled streets checking out shops. We usually stop midway to give Annie a rest and have a latte in the town square. About a dozen or so expats are there every morning, sharing gossip. In the afternoon, we walk for another hour looking at lovely homes on the mountainside.

Most are majestic, and way beyond our means, however, we found several absolutely lovely neighborhoods with homes for rent in the $750-$1000 /month range; several with lake views and pools.

In that regard, it is certainly the most affordable place we have looked at so far. Food in the restaurants is also very affordable as are groceries. Today I bought two big thick pork chops and a chunk of sharp cheddar cheese for $5 U.S. In Utila, the cheese alone would have cost me $7!

Real estate is moving quite well here, in all price ranges – a big difference from the over supply of homes in Utila. There are lovely 2-3 bedroom homes here with very nice architectural features, yards and pools in the $200,000 - $300,000 range.

During our walk today, we found the place where they have open mic on Wednesday evenings, so we are going to go next Wednesday. They have a very nice stage and sound system, so that will be a big improvement over the last place we played at where we had to sing without amplification. A little later we went to the neighbouring town to check out the pickle ball court - a lovely racquet club with 8 outdoor courts - all with amazing lake views. Alongside the road there we saw a mare and her newborn foal.

Our little brown charge here – Annie the standard poodle – is very well natured and lovable, but she is incredibly strong, and proving quite a challenge on dog walks. Today we were walking her on one of those extendable dog leashes, thinking it would give us a little more control over her. As we were walking through the town square, we stopped to buy some green beans off a street seller, and as Stephane, who was holding the leash, relaxed his grip while getting money out of the pack, a young boy on a very small bike went riding past, and Annie bolted out in front of her, pulling the leash out about 15 feet across the courtyard, the young boy was about to be decapitated by the leash, so Steph had to drop the leash, and now we had a boy with a leash around his neck, still riding forward, while Annie was chasing him, and Stephane chasing her! It was quite a spectacle, and we felt very relieved to finally get the boy untangled and back on his feet, unscathed. Later, Annie decided to wrap herself around the ankles of an older woman almost upending her. Needless to say, we will keep our energetic perro on a tighter leash, and do our best to teach her some better leash manners.

The roads in Ajijic are all cobbled, and while that makes the town look “charming” it is truly quite difficult to walk on. I am quite nervous one of us will end up with a broken ankle between dogging Annie and navigating road boulders! There are sidewalks, but like elsewhere in Mexico, they leave much to be desired. One cannot take their eyes off the ground without risking life and limb.

All in all, we are amply impressed with the Lake Chapala area, and would definitely consider returning here for a longer stay. The idea of a climate that is warm all year – but not blistery hot is quite appealing - I would definately say Ajijic has made the short list.

Ajijic on Lake Chapala - a Pretty Good Gig

Ajijic is a lovely mountain town in the state of Jalisco – just about 45 minutes from Guadalajara. There are easy flights from most places to the airport in Guadalajara, so like Puerta Vallarta, it is quick and easy to get to. The attraction here is the climate – perpetual spring like weather. Never too hot, never too cold. I think Stephane and I would find it a bit too cold in the winter, as it can go down to 10 degrees Celcius at night, but I must admit, sleeping at night is pretty nice here. No air conditioning needed. It has been going down to 17 at night, so we sleep with the doors and windows open (they are screened) and we even have blankets on our bed and can snuggle without Stephane getting too hot. In the morning I have to wear jeans and a hoodie, but by noon it is warm - highs of 25 Celcius.

The town itself is charming – there’s that word again…but it really is. Colourful buildings, neat shops, town square surrounded by cafes, cobbled streets, and a lovely malecon along the lake.

The area is mountainous, but lush, and there is a great variety of stores and restaurants.

I found a super delicatessen today and bought some nice cheeses and meats and a bottle of red wine for supper tonight. It is my birthday today, so I get to eat whatever I want – so charcuterie it is!

The home we are house sitting here is absolutely lovely. It sits on the side of the mountain, one block from the main street where there are shops and restaurants - and even a wine and cheese store, and it has lovely gardens and outdoor areas.

Our “casita” is a beautiful house in and of itself. No roughing it here. There is a maid and a gardener and a pool guy, so our sole job is to love and care for Annie, a delightful 1 year old standard poodle.

She is adorable, and we love her already. Our other job is to feed the hundreds of hummingbirds that hover around the four feeders like swarms of bees. Each day we are to make five litres of sugar water for them and keep the feeders full. Watching them is our biggest source of entertainment. They are amazing.Tomorrow we will move from the guest quarters into the big house for a month.

Last Day of Island Paradise (Day 53)

Tonight will be our last night here at Big Rock Cabana on the island of Utila. Our Island Paradise experiment was very worthwhile. 50+ days to compare the dream to reality, and there were a great many surprises. I won’t reiterate all the things we have experienced and learned, but encourage you to read all the posts; Suffice it to say that we do not regret our time here, and we look forward to returning, if possible, for a much longer time.

Tomorrow a boat will pick us up at 6am and take us to town where we will take a tuk tuk to the small municipal airport for our short trip on a little plane to San Pedro Sula. From there we will fly via United Airlines to Houston, and then to Guadalajara where we will take a taxi to Ajijic on Lake Chapala. It will be a long day, and I will be going back to writing only once a week blog posts, so you may not hear from me for a few days. I do hope these past 52 days have been fun to read about, and I hope those of you who only recently began following will continue to do so as we will weekly update you on the ongoing adventures of our two star retirement. Remember, life is short, take out the pink towels. Choose the life you want and live it!

Island Paradise Day 52 - by Stephane

Eight months into retirement and I have enjoyed every minute of it and have not missed my job one bit. I do however, get a little home sick from time to time and miss our friends and family. Funny thing is, I am not 100% sure what home is anymore. I sometimes think of Los Arroyos Verdes in Bucerias and the World Vacation Club in Conchas Chinas as "home." I think it is the familiarity, as we have been there several times, and there is comfort in knowing some of the people there. The fact that we have had friends and family come to visit us in certain places has also helped make our stays feel a little more like home. Also, there is a certain vibe to some places that is hard to define, that makes a place feel homey, enjoyable, and comfortable to me.

We have been pretty lucky since we left in October as we have had great weather everywhere we have been. The weather on the west coast of Mexico has been the best in my opinion, as it is very dependable in the winter months, not too hot and humid, very sunny, but with comfortable nights. I have also enjoyed the style of travel we have been doing, scouting out places, traveling on nice buses and smaller planes. I appreciate very much that Corrie has found awesome accommodations for us at good prices - except for one place. I have always known myself to be a city slicker and have never been much for roughing it or camping, and that place just confirmed that. I am not ashamed to say that I have a certain level of comfort that I am just not willing to live without for very long. I can probably rough it for a day or two, but that is it! So, Staying somewhere for at least a couple of months is a good way to get a better feel for a place, on the other hand, if you don't like it, it kind of sucks. Having done both long and short stays, I think that if you have never been to an area, it is better not pre-pay a longer stay, but rather give yourself the flexibility to get out of it if you don't like it.

Of all the places we have stayed, I love living on the water front best. I am not sure why I love it so much as I was born and raised in the city, not really close to the water. Regardless, I love staring at the water, the sound of the waves, walking on the beach, swimming, floating, and going out on boats. I have especially enjoyed the proximity to the reef and seeing all the marine life here at Jack Neal beach while snorkeling. I also love pelicans. I know, they are not the prettiest of birds, but I enjoy watching them fly in formation. I love to see them dive to catch fish. The fact that they are goofy looking adds to their charm for me. Apparently, in Costa Rica where they do not have military, they call pelicans the Costa Rican air force.

There are disadvantages to living in an ocean front property, but, falling asleep and waking up to the sound of the waves and drinking my morning coffee on a water front deck, especially right on the crystal clear ocean puts a smile on my face and peace in my heart.

One of the things I wanted to do in retirement was to stay at one of those expensive over water bungalows in Tahiti or somewhere, but hey, who needs to spend $1000 per night to stay in an over water bungalow in Tahiti when for two months we have had a covered deck on the Caribbean Sea with two hammocks and a rocking chair!

As for things I had planned to do in retirement, well, I seem to be even lazier than I thought. I feel no need to do anything productive yet. I have not spent as much time as I thought playing music, and learning Spanish is way harder than I thought it would be. I mostly hang out with my best friend and wife Corrie, doing whatever we are doing at the moment and that suites me fine. I have always loved just hanging out with her. We often have long conversations about our plans for the future, changing our plans often and then re-planning again (hey, why not, we have lots of time!)

We sometimes get on each other’s nerves, being together 24 hours a day can sometimes create some tension, but we have lived that way for a long time and are used to it, and we are lucky that we like each other’s company so much. I retired from a job that required a lot of business travel and that used to put a strain on our relationship, so I am so glad to be done with that. It makes our life together much better.

I would say that once in a while I do worry about money. We are after all on a two star retirement plan. But Corrie promptly puts everything in perspective and reminds me that we have a lot more money than most people when they retire. In fact, I sometimes catch myself thinking that this life is not "real life," and one day I will have to wake up from this wonderful dream and go back to some sort of daily stressful grind. But then I realize that "real" life is not an objective concept, and that my life can be whatever I want it to be, and I can decide to live a full and happy life. I don't have to give in to the unreal aspiration of the "perfect” life. My life right now is as real as it gets and it is pretty damn wonderful!

I do think that having some kind of purpose or deeper meaning in life, or even short productive things to do is probably important: whether it is some type of work or volunteering or more substantial hobbies. I do have music, but I probably will need to find other meaningful things at some point. But in the famous words of BONO: "I still haven't found what I'm looking for," and for now, that's ok.

Island Paradise Day 51

Today Stephane and I went beach combing. We realized that we are leaving in two days and had not really spent any time looking down. We are always so mesmerized by the water, that we had neglected to see the myriad of shells, coral, seeds, glass, and other things (beside plastic) that line the shores.

I found some cool seeds called “hamburger seeds.” They float over from the mainland, and would make amazing bracelets as they have the look and feel of beautiful round balls of wood. We also discovered a whole colony of snails living on the underside of some lava rock. Some of them were of serious supper size! Tonight I did some research on if they are edible. Apparently, any sea snail that is edible is called a whelk. And there are various different whelks that live in the waters of the Caribbean. Conch, is the largest, and used to be a main food source here, but because of over fishing, you do not see a lot of them.

When I first came to the Bay Islands years ago, one of my favorite memories was of the amazing conch I had in the restaurants. Conche ceviche in particular was amazing. Now, I have not seen any conch on menus. Other edible whelks include smaller snails, like some of the ones we found today. The problem is there are 80,000 species of gastropods, and only a couple dozen are edible, so I think I will not try to guess which ones.

Stephane and I also did some snorkeling today, and although the visibility was not great, the water was calm and we saw an eagle ray. Probably the last one we will see for a long time, so we were grateful for the encounter. They really are very majestic, only this one seemed to be missing his tail. We also saw a big Permit fish about two feet long.

After snorkeling I took over to Susan some sweet potato sprouts I started for her. I think they will grow here, and will provide her with much needed fresh greens – maybe even year round. She showed me her Moringa trees. One of them has grown about 30 feet in two years. It produces many seed pods. I told her I paid $30 for 10 seeds a few years ago, so she is sitting on a gold mine…if only there was mail service out of Utila. Moringa is a super food, and worthy of trying to grow. Apparently I have one that has grown successfully in my absence. On a whim I stuck a seed in one of my plant pots before I left in October, and last I heard it was about 7 feet tall! I hope it survives until I get home.

Island Paradis Day 50

I just found out that my insurance company will not cover the water problem in my house back home. It is a long story, and I am still so mad I don’t want to tell the story because I will just get all pissed off again and have trouble sleeping. Suffice it to say that I will now have to either curtail my travels and go home and renovate the basement suite, or continue my travels and only have the upper unit rented, therefore reducing my income by $1000/month, and hope to God nothing else happens while I am away. Also, the neighbour called the property manager to complain about the fact that the Cedar trees lining our property are not being watered, and they don't want them to die - because let's face it dead Cedars are butt ugly...I don't blame them. I don't want them to die either. I thought the property management company dealt with this stuff? That's why I hired them for Pete's sake! Well, apparently they did not know we had an automatic watering system, so have been letting our grass die and trees wither in the heat. Sigh.

I guess I have learned a good lesson: don’t rent out a house you have not lived in. Had we lived in the house for a while first, we would have discovered all of these problems and been able to fix them before leaving. But, the timing was such that we took possession of the house two weeks before leaving on our trip. Originally we had planned on returning home on April 21, so none of this would have been a problem, but we were having such fun we decided to extend out travels and take advantage of the two year healthcare coverage the BC government allows once every five years. So the plan changed, we hired a property manager, and we decided to be homeless until April 2020.

Anyway, since we have already paid for September and October in Puerto Vallarta, and we have the Bucerias place on hold for November forward, we have decided to go ahead and fix the upstairs bathroom and put new tenants in there for September, but we will leave the basement empty and renovate it when we get home in either May 2019 or April 2020 - depending on if we can find something to rent long term in Utila.

Personally I am getting anxious to just go home and get started on the major renovation. At least then if we pick up our travels afterwards we will have a house that is all fixed up and I can organize things better before we take off. Of course, with the luck we have had, we might spend $100,000 renovating only to have some tenant trash the place like they did last fall. Grrrrrrrrrr. Not sure what to do so our plans are now in flux. I may even have to go home this week and leave Steph to go house sit in Lake Chapala alone. I have to talk to the potential contractor tomorrow, and will decide then what makes the most sense.

Meanwhile back in Paradise, we got a good giggle today when Upco, the Utilan power company, sent out the following notice on Facebook: “Lights will be off Tradewind till 2 pm in a few minutes , so we can clean the lines form the salt built up!” Besides the really bad grammar, the missing words, and the misspelled words, what I thought funny was that a) they send their notices by Facebook, and b) they had to scrape salt off the lines!

This is the reality on Utila. Facebook is the mail and the phone here. Cell service really sucks and there is no mail service, so people and companies communicate by Facebook. The longer I am here the more I see the corrosive power of sea salt. It will literally destroy things almost as fast as you can replace them. Check out this tap in a washroom I recently used at a restaurant:

When we come out of the water from snorkeling or swimming, if we forget to shower, we are literally covered in tiny white salt crystals. My hair is so salted that it may never be the same…Steph says he likes the dreadlock look, but I think it is getting a little unruly...

Now I know what all you people back in Oliver are thinking...that my hair ALWAYS looks like that! But besides long and scraggly, it's texture is no longer, well, hair like. Speaking of hair, Stephane's hair is finally long enough to put the top half in a little ponytail. So now he looks like a hipster. He won't let me take his picture: I think he is still getting use to the idea of a ponytail. Maybe by the time we get home in August he will have a tatoo too!

I digress - back to the salt thing.Check out the top of our dryer:

Corrosion is the trade off if you want to live on the ocean front. New appliances every few years will certainly increase one's cost of living, that is for sure. On the other hand, think of all the money we have saved on haircuts!