Ajijic

We left the Pacific coast before Easter and headed inland to Lake Chapala. Semana Santa (Holy Week) was approaching and the beaches would be filled with vacationers, a kind of Mexican spring break. The drive from Barra de Navidad to Lake Chapala was uneventful. We took Mexico 200 south along the coast skirting mangrove-flanked estuaries and the port of Manzanillo. Turning north on Mexico 110, we passed through Colima, the capital of Mexico’s fourth smallest states, and picked up Mexico 54 to Guadalajara. Gaining elevation, we passed the impressive Colima Volcanic Complex, including Nevado de Colima at 4,300 m (14,000 ft), at the western end of the 900-km (560-mi) trans-Mexican volcanic belt (link).

Ajijic and Lago de Chapala

Lago de Chapala is located at 1,525 m (5,000 ft) in a rift valley formed by crustal movements accompanied by earthquakes and faulting 12 million years ago. The lake is a remnant of a much larger lake that formed during the Pleistocene (link). Still, it is the largest natural freshwater lake in Mexico and the third largest in Central America at 75 km (47 mi) long and 20 km (12 mi) at its widest point. It averages only 7 m (23 ft) deep, although recently average depth has fallen to 4.5 m (15 ft) (Kendrick 2007;  link). The Lerma River-Lake Chapala Basin is Mexico’s largest and most important for agriculture and industry.  It has 2.9% of Mexico’s land area, 9.3% of its population and 11.5% of national GDP (link). 

Fishermen and white pelicans on Lake Chapala

Lake Chapala has a moderate, semi-tropical climate with a summer rainy season (link). The North Shore towns of Jocotepec, San Juan Cosalá, Ajijic and Chapala are home to 6,000-10,000 foreign residents, mostly Americans and Canadians. Guadalajara is an hour's drive to the north. The attractions  “...for residential tourists are an amenable climate; reasonable property prices; access to stores, restaurants and high quality medical service; an attractive natural environment; a diversity of social activities; proximity to airports; tax advantages, and relatively inexpensive living costs" (link). See these links to read more about living at Lake Chapala (link; link; link).

La Capillita, a small chapel on the north side of the plaza

A house in upper Ajijic (above the carretera)

House in Ajijic near the lake

Finding a place in the sun is like trying on clothes: you want something comfortable and not unattractive that meets your needs. We've spent time in a range of Mexican settings, from major tourist destinations to small communities with few gringos. Our list of needs has become clearer with each stop. The expatriate community of Lake Chapala's north shore dates back to the early 20th Century and is one of the largest in Mexico (link); we wanted to see what they found so attractive. 

Residential street in Ajijic

Residential street in Ajijic

Ajijic means "where the waters spring forth" in the Nahuatl language (link). Houses along its quiet cobblestone streets are built behind high walls that begin at the sidewalk or, on smaller properties, houses begin at the sidewalk. “Houses offer an austere façade to the street; the beautiful gardens and things/treasures are inside” (Kendrick 2007). The walls provide privacy and sanctuary and are typical of Spanish architecture (link).

Door on the street

Door on the street

For four decades, Ajijic has commemorated Semana Santa (Holy Week) with a re-enactment of the last week in the life of Jesus Christ. It begins on Palm Sunday with with a large procession re-enacting Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Later, local fiesta foods are sold in the plaza to raise funds for the Passion Play and music radiates from the bandstand, all to be followed by a sunset Mass at La Iglesia de San Andrés, the 18th Century parish church. There are re-enactment of scenes on Thursday of the Last Supper and Jesus being taken away by Roman soldiers. On Friday, Jesus is tried and convicted at San Andrés Church and led away for the Crucifixion, which is re-enacted in upper Ajijic. On Saturday there is an Easter Service and the re-enactment of his Resurrection (link). 

La Iglesia de San Andrés

The bandstand in the plaza

The plaza on the first Sunday of Semana Santa (Holy Week)

A lot of activity was focused on the malecón along the lakeshore. The park was full of vacationing families, some from as far away as Mexico City, picnicking beneath the trees, kids running on the grass, teenagers hanging out, a brass band playing popular music on the malecón, and vendors selling everything from ice cream and fruit drinks to sun glasses and wooden chairs. On the lakeshore, people were camping, riding horses, eating in makeshift restaurants, flying kites, swimming and boating. In recent times, Lake Chapla came up to the base of the wall, so they were basically driving and recreating on the lakebed. 

On the malecón

A band on the malecón

Horse rental and restaurant on the lakeshore along the malecón

Activities on the lakeshore that was once covered with water

Skate park at the far end of the malecón

Cars far outnumber horses in Ajijic today, but in the mid-20th century, horses were more numerous than cars (link). Part of the horse culture still survives. We saw families riding horses on the cobblestone streets of the village, men on horseback talking on their cellphones and drinking beers, a horse was tied to a tree around the corner from where we stayed, and we saw men showing off their horses on the lakebed. Ajijic has several places where you can rent a horse to ride along the lake shore. 

A place to rent horses on Constitución under jacaranda trees

A display of horsemanship on the lakeshore

 

Horsemanship is learned early

Everywhere we've been in Mexico, we've seen murals of varying sizes, skill and complexity. Mexico has a long tradition of mural painting in public places associated with educating and improving people’s lives. A century ago, murals were a way to unite a largely illiterate country and give rise to great muralists like Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco (link). Ajijic has a lot of painted walls (link); some of the murals tell stories, some express reverence and some are just fun and decoration. Most impressive was the beautiful three-panel mural on Centro Escolar (elementary school) on Marcos Castellanos by an anonymous artist.

On Independencia

House door

La Virgen de Guadalupe

El espíritu de la laguna - The spirit of the lake

The spirit of the lake mural on Centro Escolar on Marcos Castellanos

Centro Escolar

Centro Escolar

The Wednesday tianguis (street market) on Revolución draws a crowd. Vendors arrive early to set up their stalls and the street is closed to traffic. It’s a place where locals can shop for anything from housewares to clothes to fruit, vegetables and meat. It’s also a place to meet friends and chat, or grab a quick bite to eat.

Wednesday street market near the top of Revolución 

Fresh fruits and vegetables

Dried fruits and chiles

Fresh cut flowers

Fresh fish including marine and freshwater species

Restaurant

Huichol bead art (link) includes jewelry and bead-decorated wood carvings

The market spills out of Revolución and into the streets below

Ajijic is filled with shops, art galleries (link) and restaurants that attract Mexican and foreign tourists – bakeries and chocolate shops, boutiques and furniture stores, Mexican handcrafts and restaurants serving Mexican and international cuisine (link). 

Shops and galleries on Morelos

A mix of businesses and residences

During Semana Santa, Lucio Ruiz, a master Oaxacan weaver demonstrated carding, spinning, dying (using flowers, leaves, bark, mosses and insects) and weaving Zapotec tapetes (tapestries) in the plaza near where his weavings are sold.

Lucio Ruiz, master Oaxacan weaver, demonstrating his technique for Rande

Lucio Ruiz

Lucio Ruiz explaining his Zapotec tapestries

Natural materials and dyes are used in Zapotec tapestries

The North Shore of Lake Chapala has a literary history that goes back to the early 20th Century European and North American writers,artists, musicians and dancers visited the area and some settled there permanently (link). Among the earliest writers was an Englishman with the pseudonym of Dane Chandos who wrote Village in the Sun in 1945 and House in the Sun in 1949, a time when there were few foreigners living in the area. His first book is the fictionalized account of the first year he spent in Ajijic (link); his second book is the fictionalized account of a man who converted his house in Ajijic into an inn and the people who visited (link).

Tom's Bar

“The former fishing village was ‘discovered’ by North American expats in the 1950s, and attracted adventurous, artistic and sometimes bohemian types. Well into the 1960s, there was a single caseta [phone booth] in the village for long distance telephone calls, and by the 1970s, horses were still more common than cars” (link).

Thrownetting on Lake Chapala

Unfortunately, Lake Chapala suffers from a century of overuse and abuse. Water from the lake is used for irrigation, municipal water for 34 cities, including six with over one million people, tourism, recreation and fisheries (link). Wetlands covering about a third of the lake’s surface area at its eastern end were diked and drained to create farmland (link); exotic water hyacinth and several species of fish were introduced; and nutrients, heavy metals, pesticides and sewage increased in the Leama River, which empties into the lake, while river flows decreased. Lago de Chapala was designated as a Wetland of International Importance by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in 2009 (link). 

The fisherman's catch - tilapia, an introduced species

The resulting algal blooms, explosion of water hyacinth populations, decreasing water clarity and decreasing native fish and white pelican (which winter on the lake) populations are symptoms of cultural eutrophication. According to Tony Burton: “The lake's future does not look too promising.” (link). While these problems have been known for decades, relatively little information was available at the river-basin scale. That’s changed in recent years (link; link), but there are still formidable obstacles to restoring Lake Chapala (link). 

A one-man band in the plaza

Conchita weaving on the lakeshore

Teresa Kendrick. 2007. Mexico’s Lake Chapala & Ajijic: The Insider’s Guide. 2^nd Edition. Mexico Travelers Information. Austin, Texas. 417pp.