We drove over from Tulum on the Mexican Riviera last week to Lake Chapala it sit’s high in the colonial highlands of Central Mexico at 5,000 foot elevation.
The lake is 50 miles long and about 25 miles across and fairly shallow about 15 -20 feet. It is surrounded by lush green mountains which provide near perfect weather year round. National Geographic has called it the 2nd best climate in the world after a place in Kenya where nobody goes ever on vacation unless you like gorilla warfare and lots of starving people who’s kill you to eat today.
Long 24 hour drive but a really beautiful scenery the entire way. One thing that surprises most forst time travelers is how extraordinary Mexico’s road system is. They have thousands of miles of toll roads that are almost like our Interstate freeway system in the US without all of the potholes and broken bridges that you read about in the US sadly.
We left Tulum with it late summer heat of high 80-90′s and very high humidity which means you sweat all day and night unless your inside running the AC which gets expensive here.
Get out of the car and right away you feel the cooling breezes and no humidity. The small village of Ajijic where we are renting an upstairs apartment for the week is right on the lake and still has 400-500 year old cobblestone streets. It has become a mixed community with thousands of gringos having moved here all around the lake for the perfect weather. We were blown away by the place and have decided to pack up and move here next month. We will be living even cheaper here than in Tulum, we rented a nice 3 bedroom 3 bath fully furnished home with a nice back year with a huge avocado tree for $640 a month. I’ve got a huge upstairs office with lots of natural light that I can just barely see the lake.
There are several towns around the lake from Chapala, Ajijic, San Antonia, Jocotepec each with it’s own unique flavor and outdoor farmers markets on different days of the week. The variety of fresh fruits and vegetables and seafood in incredible and you can eat cheaply here for sure.
One big difference here is they have been farming organically for centuries without calling it so – hum.
The weather here is so perfect that you don’t see any AC and very few fireplaces or heaters in the houses. You could move here or come here and stay on vacation and never need a car you can walk almost everywhere or if you need a taxi their really cheap.
Guadalajara’s nice new International airport is 30-40 min, flight are easy to get and pretty cheap from the US or Canada.
There are 2 Costco’s and 5 Wal-Marts plus several Sam’s Club’s there plus all of the big box store or shopping you could ever want in life.
We found that the shopping lakeside was more than sufficient for 90% of our needs and we would only need to go into the big city once or twice a month.
All in all this is a great place to beat either the cold winter blues or summer heat form the US and Canada.
Beautiful waterfront in Chapala