Blake and Deborah in Mexico: Chapala

Coming back to Lake Chapala after six years has allowed us to reconnect with friends we made the last time – friends who really changed our perspective about the possibility of someday living here. Karen was a realtor on our previous visit and, with her husband Bill, showed us several properties in the area at that time. Karen's no longer in the business but she and Deborah have stayed in email/facebook contact so we wanted to see them again on this trip. We got together for drinks and then lunch at one of Ajijic's better restaurants, followed by cake and tea back at our apartment. They both still love living here and encouraged us to consider it. Karen perhaps has an ulterior motive as she'd love to one day take advantage of Deborah's hair styling and home organization skills.

We made a special effort on this trip to visit a few times with our good friends Gordon and Tony, a couple who live in La Floresta, our favorite neighborhood in Ajijic. We were more than happy to share a few meals with them as well as many hours of conversation sitting on their terrace in the company of their four friendly dogs. Gordon is a particularly effective proponent for this area and is fond of using the phrase “when you move here...” as opposed to “if you move here...” He was kind enough to drive us around a bit and to show us the houses of some neighbor friends. One of those friends has season tickets to the Scotiabank Northern Lights Music Festival, which takes place in Ajijic this time each year. He wasn't able to use his tickets for a couple of the performances and so passed them on through Gordon to us. As a result we got to see two great concerts for free – one a renowned classical pianist and the other an award-winning jazz quartet. Having these sort of quality cultural offerings in the relatively small village of Ajijic – without having to go to the much more metropolitan Guadalajara – is another advantage to living at lakeside. There is English language live theater here also, as well as cinemas and plenty of art galleries. After our last restaurant meal with Gordon and Tony, Gordon insisted on paying the bill, craftily causing us to owe them a meal and thus ensuring our return visit.

So we end this trip having visited three great areas in Mexico, each with it's own advantages and disadvantages. Mérida has loads of cultural offerings, friendly people and very little crime for a city of its size. But it is still a big, noisy city with traffic and air pollution, and, although the winter weather we experienced was quite nice, the summers are supposed to be brutally hot and humid. It's also Florida flat; and I think we'd miss the mountains. I liked the town of Izamal a lot but it, like Mérida, is situated inland and would experience the same sweltering summers, plus Deborah thinks it is a bit too small of a place for her. If we were to live in this area it would probably have to be in one of the smaller villages on the coast where the sea breezes keep the temperatures cooler, but where you're still not too far from the big city culture and conveniences.

Oaxaca is scenically situated up in the mountains and has an ideal climate with warm sunny days and cooler nights. The historical center is a gem, better maintained than Mérida's, and with a nice selection of cultural activities from concerts to museums, plus a beautiful, lively main plaza. It is still a large city though, so if we chose this area we'd want to explore some of the smaller outlying villages that are popular with expats. We didn't have a chance to check out housing prices in Oaxaca, but I'm told they aren't cheap. Oaxaca is deep in the south of Mexico and there are more indigenous people than other parts of the country, which lends it more of an exotic air, which appeals to me. I also like the fact that Oaxaca is an area full of artisans and their various crafts. And of course you can eat bugs there.

Lake Chapala, and in particular Ajijic, in a way makes the most sense. It sits at a similar elevation as Oaxaca and enjoys an equally good climate. (Locals would say the climate is better, siting a 1968 National Geographic article proclaiming it the second best in the world, trailing only Nairobi, Kenya). It's close to the US with an international airport just 30 minutes away. Big city culture and amenities lie just 45 minutes away in Guadalajara. The huge contingent of North American expats here is both good and bad. It would make the transition much less difficult as we could easily harvest the crop of local knowledge gained here from our fellow English speakers, and in particular from those friends we have made here. And frankly you can get by here knowing very little Spanish, which, outside of tourist areas, is not the case in the rest of Mexico. But we want to learn Spanish and I would hope we would continue to work on our language skills no matter how easy it is to just not bother. Ajijic is more Americanized than I'd generally prefer, but there is something to be said for shared values and the fact that it's easier to find favorite foods, entertainment, etc. There is crime here – maybe no more than at home, but more than you'll find, for instance, on the Yucatan Peninsula. And the traffic and sense of hustle and bustle is also more than the sleepy village vibe I had in mind, but I'm told that once the snow birders fly home to Canada and America things quiet down considerably. That's also when the rain starts and the hills turn from brown to green and the flowers bloom. That's when we need to come back to buy Gordon and Tony dinner.

I think Deborah would be happy to settle on Ajijic as our future home now, but she knows her husband is the king of research and needs to explore other options. We can say that Mexico in general is a real possibility though. The climate (in certain areas at least) is great. The people are nice. Housing – at least the kind we're interested in and in the areas we're interested – isn't necessarily cheap, but the day-to-day cost of living is low. The health care is excellent and affordable. And despite the headlines back home, most of the country is safe. Next winter we're thinking of Uruguay and Chile, but of course that is always subject to change. Bye for now, but tune in again come November or December.